A Touching Incident.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5155, 25 July 1885, Page 1

A Touching Incident.

A pathetic scene occurred a few nights „..,,,.. ago at a notorious uptown resort. It wai a little girl pleading with her father. "Won't you come home, how, father, please ?" she said. Her voice was low and childish, and the sweet upturned face was pale and quivering with some hardly suppressed emotion, but the man toward: whom the appeal and agony were directed took little notice of either. . " -: •'Why do you bother me?" he said, -ft impatiently. "Go home. I'll come home- ; :~ when I'm ready," and, regaining with an effort his uncertain balance, he left her. The girl looked after him wistfully; then, as his form was lost to her view.in. the crowded room, with a deep, despairing sigh, she turned and left the place. Oatside the electric lights streamed full upon ' her slender figure as she hesitated a ' moment before descending the step. One or two policemen loitering near eyed her curiously, HDd some men hurrying in gave j her a quick, questioning glance, but no one molested or spoke to her, and slowly she went froiq the glare and dazzle into the darker street beyond. ' . ■-' The night was cold and stormy. Ad icy sleet was falling, driven in every direction by the capricious and fitful wind gusts, and the few pedestrians who were abroad hurried on their way anxious to gain shelter. The girl alone appeared unconscious of the di- comforts of the weather. The rain beat upon her, the fierce wind met her with a force agaiaat ' which she staggered, but she did notheed them. With doubtful purpose she walked slowly od, turning back once or twice to look again at the place whence she had just come, until as the clock from a neighI boring tower indicated to her how late tha hour was, she stopped altogether. ." So late," she murmured. "Oh 11 cannot go home without him; " and now she turned swiftly and retraced her steps. ! She paused not a moment on the thres« hold; evidently she feared her own resolution. The doors yielded instantly to her toueb, and once more she looked' i over the scene whose light' and warmth, and comfort were as little to her as the rain and wind outside. Her searchingglance soon found out her father; for the ' moment he was standing alone, and his daughter felt that she had one more chance. Bapidly she gained bis Bide. " Esther, dear father," she began, speaking low but passionately. " I cannot leave you here. I cannot faoe mamma without you; she has waited so many nights for your' home-coming, and the hours are so dreary without you. Oh! father," the child went on gathering up all her energies, as she saw that her listener was half heeding her words, "break away from this wretched place, come back to your home and mamma and me; we love you so dearly we cannot live without you, and ah ! it is all so different now from what it used to be." The childish voice was breaking, " Such a little time ago we were all so happy." Here a sob almost choked her. She slipped her clinging fingers into the unresisting hand of the man who staggered at her side. "Comeback to as, father; come home with me now," and the tears no longer within her power to restrain, courted down her pale cheeks as she lifted her

face to him, ho!dit»K his gaze with her wistful, pleading i-jes. The man's features worked convulsively; he looked about him once half desperately; then some better feeling swept over him, and straightening himself up, he said brokenly, " I will go with you, Jennie," and clasping close the hand of his little daughter, as if that frail guide were bis chief support, the two t< gether went out from the light, and glare, and dazzle of. the roller-skating rink forever. —New York Sun.