"I'm sorry, but the servant at the Dentons has cut her hand badly. Don't wait supper for me," he exclaims.
"Jim has not come in, and no one can tell when those children will be back. If the fair should keep open three months longer every one will be dead with fatigue. Yes, we'll wait. I am going to take some toast up to mother."
"The children!" Doctor Joe has a strange, guilty sort of feeling. What if to-night should bring her a new son, as some future night will bring her a new daughter?
Father Underhill sits on the front stoop reading his paper. He glances up now and then. When he espies a small figure in soft gray with a wide-brimmed leghorn hat, and a young man, he studies them more attentively. What is this? She has the young man's arm,--that has gone out of date for engaged people,--and her head inclines toward him. She glances up and smiles.
And then a great pang rends the father's soul. They come nearer, and she smiles to him; but, oh! there is a light in her face, a gladness shining in her eyes, a tremulous sweetness about the mouth. Did he read all this in her mother's face years and years ago? Did _her_ mother have this awful pang that seems to wrench body and soul asunder?
They say good-evening and that it has been a glorious afternoon. The young man will lose no time,--hasn't he been dangling three months already?
How brave and sweet and assured the voice is! And he helps the little girl up the steps, through the hall space, and the three stand in the parlour, where the young man prefers his request with such a daring that the elder man is almost dazed. Then the father holds out his arms as if he was grasping for something lost. She comes to them, and her head is on his breast, her hands reaching up to clasp him about the neck.
His voice is broken, his face goes down to hers. The sweetest thing of his life,--how can he give her up?
"Oh, father, father!" The cry is so entreating, so piteous, and he feels the tears on her sweet face. "Oh, father, can I not love you both?"
She loosens one hand and holds it out to the young man. He feels the motion, and accepts the fact that her heart is divided. She draws her lover in the circle. "You will love him for my sake."