After that
he took care of her himself with the assistance of friendly
landladies at the hotels he frequented, who all took an
interest in and were kind to the little motherless girl, but
were too busy to have any time to spend in teaching her, or
enlarging her ideas; and indeed all the world conspired to
carry out M. Linders' plan; for who would have cared, even had
it been possible, to undertake the ungracious task of opening
the eyes of a child to the real character of a father whom she
loved and believed in so implicitly? And she was so happy,
too! Setting aside any possible injury he might be doing her,
M. Linders was the most devoted of fathers, loving and caring
for her most tenderly, and thinking himself well repaid by the
clinging grasp of her small hand, by the spring of joy with
which she welcomed him after any absence, by her gleeful voice
and laughter, her perfect trust and confidence in him.
There must have been something good and true about this man,
roue and gambler though he was, that, somehow, he himself and
those around him had missed hitherto, but that sprang
willingly into life when appealed to by the innocent faith,
the undoubting love of his little child.
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