midst of his bewilderment he was conscious of feeling deeply reconciled to her ten years. At length her father succeeded in quieting her, and, taking her arms from his neck, he placed her on his knee, and said: "My darling, here is a gentleman waiting all this time to speak to you. Come, go over to him and shake hands with him." At this the child turned her large black eyes on Guy, and scanned him superciliously from head to foot. The result seemed to satisfy her, for she advanced a few steps to take the hand which he had smilingly held out; but a thought seemed suddenly to strike her which arrested her progress half-way. "Did _he_ keep you, papa?" she said, abruptly, while a jerk of her head in Guy's direction signified the proper noun to which the pronoun referred. "He had something to do with it," answered her father, with a smile. "Then I sha'n't shake hands with him," she said, resolutely; and, putting the aforesaid appendages behind her back to prevent any forcible appropriation of them, she hurried away, and clambered up on her father's knee. The General, knowing probably by painful experience the futility of trying to combat any determination of this very decided young lady, did not attempt to make any remonstrance, but allowed her to establish herself in her accustomed position. During this process Guy had leisure to inspect her. This he did without _any_ feeling of the immense importance of this child's character to his own future life, without thinking that this little creature might be destined to raise him up to heaven or thrust him down to hell, but only with the idle, critical view of an uninterested spectator. Guy was, in fact, too young to estimate the future, and things which were connected with that future, at their right value. He was little more than a boy, and so he looked with a boy's eyes upon this singular child. She struck him as the oddest little mortal that he had ever come across. She was very tiny, not taller than many children of eight, and so slight and fragile that she looked as if a breath might blow her away. But if in figure she looked eight, in face she looked fifty. In that face there was no childishness whatever. It was a thin, peaked, sallow face, with a discontented expression; her features were small and pinched, her hair, which was of inky blackness, fell on her shoulders in long, straight locks, without a ripple or a wave in them. She looked like an elf, but still this elfish little creature was redeemed from the hideousness which else might have been her doom by eyes of the most wonderful brilliancy. Large, luminous, potent eyes--intensely black, and deep as the depths of ocean, they seemed to fill her whole face; and in moments of excitement they could light up with volcanic fires, revealing the intensity of that nature which lay beneath. In repose they were unfathomable, and defied all conjecture as to what their possessor might develop into. All this Guy noticed, as far as was possible to one so young and inexperienced; and the general result of this survey was a state of bewilderment and perplexity. He could not make her out. She was a puzzle to him, and certainly not a very attractive one. When she had finally adjusted herself on her father's knee, the General, after the fashion of parents from time immemorial, asked: "Has my darling been a good child since papa has been away?" The question may have been a stereotyped one. Not so the answer, which came out full and decided, in a tone free alike from penitence or bravado, but giving only a simple statement of facts. "No," she said, "I have not been a good girl. I've been very naughty indeed. I haven't minded any thing that was said to me. I scratched the ayah, and kicked Sarah. I bit Sarah too. Besides, I spilt my rice and milk, and broke the plates, and I was just going to starve myself to death." At this recital of childish enormities, with its tragical ending, Guy burst into a loud laugh. The child raised herself from her father's shoulder, and, fixing her large eyes upon him, said slowly, and with set teeth: "I hate you!" She looked so uncanny as she said this, and the expression of her eyes was so intense in its malignity, that Guy absolutely started. "Hush," exclaimed her father, more peremptorily than usual; "you must not be so rude." As he spoke she again looked at Guy, with a vindictive expression, but did not deign to speak. The face seemed to him to be utterly diabolical and detestable. She looked at him for a moment, and then her head sank down upon her father's shoulder. The General now made an effort to turn the conversation to where it had left off, and reverting to Zillah's confession he said: "I thought my little girl never broke her word, and that when she promised to be good while I was away, I could depend upon her being so." This reproach seemed to touch her. She sprang up instantly and exclaimed, in vehement tones: "It was you who broke your promise to me. You said you would come back in two days, and you staid four. I did keep my word. I was good the first two days. Ask the ayah. When I found that you had deceived me, then I did not care." "But you should have trusted me, my child," said the General, in a tone of mild rebuke. "You should have known that I must have had some good reason for disappointing you. I had very important business to attend to--business, darling, which very nearly affects your happiness. Some day you shall hear about it." "But I don't want to hear about any thing that will keep you away from me," said Zillah, peevishly. "Promise never to leave me again." "Not if I can help it, my child," said the General, kissing her fondly. "No; but promise that you won't at all," persisted Zillah. "Promise never to leave me at all. Promise, promise, papa; promise--promise." "Well," said the General, "I'll promise to take you with me the next time. That will do, won't it?" "But I don't want to go away," said this sweet child; "and I won't go away."
The General gave a despairing glance at Guy, who he knew was a spectator of this scene. He felt a vague desire to get Guy alone so as to explain to him that this was only occasional and accidental, and that Zillah was really one of the sweetest and most angelic children that ever were born. Nor would this good General have consciously violated the truth in saying so; for in his heart of hearts he believed all this of his loved but sadly spoiled child. The opportunity for such explanations did not occur, however, and the General had the painful consciousness that Guy was seeing his future bride under somewhat disadvantageous circumstances. Still he trusted that the affectionate nature of Zillah would reveal itself to Guy, and make a deep impression upon him.
While such thoughts as these were passing through his mind, and others of a very varied nature were occurring to Guy, the maid Sarah arrived to take her young charge to bed. The attempt to do so roused Zillah to the most active resistance. She had made up her mind not to yield. "I won't," she cried--"I won't go to bed. I will never go away from papa a single instant until that horrid man is gone. I know he will take you away again, and I hate him. Why don't you make him go, papa?"
At this remark, which was so flattering to Guy, the General made a fresh effort to appease his daughter, but with no better success than before. Children and fools, says the proverb, speak the truth; and the truth which was spoken in this instance was not very agreeable to the visitor at whom it was flung. But Guy looked on with a smile, and nothing in his face gave any sign of the feelings that he might have. He certainly had not been prepared for any approach to any thing of this sort. On the journey the General had alluded so often to that daughter, who was always uppermost in his mind, that Guy had expected an outburst of rapturous affection from her. Had he been passed by unnoticed, he would have thought nothing of it; but the malignancy of her look, and the venom of her words, startled him, yet he was too good-hearted and considerate to exhibit any feeling whatever.
Sarah's effort to take Zillah away had resulted in such a complete failure that she retired discomfited, and there was rather an awkward period, in which the General made a faint effort to induce his daughter to say something civil to Guy. This, however, was another failure, and in a sort of mild despair he resigned himself to her wayward humor.
At last dinner was announced. Zillah still refused to leave her father, so that he was obliged, greatly to his own discomfort, to keep her on his knee during the meal. When the soup and fish were going on she was comparatively quiet; but at the first symptoms of entrées she became restive, and popping up her quaint little head to a level with the table, she eyed the edibles with the air of an habitué at the Lord Mayor's banquet. Kaviole was handed round. This brought matters to a crisis.
"A plate and a fork for me, Thomas," she ordered, imperiously.
"But, my darling," remonstrated her father, "this is much too rich for you so late at night."
"I like kaviole," was her simple reply, given with the air of one who is presenting an unanswerable argument, and so indeed it proved to be.
This latter scene was re-enacted, with but small variations, whenever any thing appeared which met with her ladyship's approval; and Guy found that
