"Meg," said he, "you've always been a good girl, a bright, brave, smart girl, with understanding of things beyond your years, though, maybe, sometimes that very thing in you has led you to be less wise than quieter folk. You've often been a help and a comfort to me."
My heart swelled big within me, and I could not speak.
"Now, if I say something to you that I wouldn't trust every girl with, will you promise me to be just as wise as you are brave?"
"Yes, father," whispered I.
"I'm afraid when I'm gone, Meg, that mother won't be so well off as I had hoped to leave her."
"Why, what does that matter?" cried I, with the scorn of a youthful and energetic, and also of an inexperienced spirit for such a thing as poverty. "So long as we live in the old place we needn't mind having to be a little more economical. Mother's very lavish now."
Father only sighed. "Besides," continued I, "you're not an old man yet, father. You've many years before you, and the hops'll be better another time."
I said it hopefully, but something in my heart misgave me. I lifted my face to find those gray eyes, dark in the fire's uncertain light, fixed upon me tenderly.
"Child, I don't believe I'm long for this world," said he, gravely. "I don't want mother to know it. Time enough when the day comes, but the doctor has told me that I carry a disease within me that may kill me at any moment."
I felt all the blood ebb away from my heart. I clasped his hand tightly, but I did not speak.