“Oh, Barby! I’m so sorry that I didn’t know all that before! I didn’t understand, and I felt real ugly about it when I heard people whispering and saying things as if he didn’t love us any more. And--when I said my prayers at bedtime--I didn’t sing ‘Eternal Father Strong to Save’ a single night while you were gone.”
Comforting arms held her close.
“Why didn’t you write and tell mother about it?”
“I didn’t want to make you feel bad. I was afraid from what Cousin Mehitable said you were going to _die_. I worried and worried over it. Oh, I had the miserablest time!”
Another kiss interrupted her. “But you’ll never do that way again, Georgina. Promise me that no matter what happens you’ll come straight to me and have it set right.”
The promise was given, with what remorse and penitence no one could know but Georgina, recalling the letter she had written, beginning with a stern “Dear Sir.” But to justify herself, she asked after the hair-brushing had begun again:
“But Barby, why has he stayed away from home four whole years? He wasn’t hunting dragons before this, was he?”
“No, but I thought you understood that, too. He didn’t come back here to the Cape because there were important things which kept him in Washington during his furloughs. Maybe you were too small to remember that the time you and I were spending the summer in Kentucky he had planned to join us there. But he wired that his best friend in the Navy, an old Admiral, was at the point of death, and didn’t want him to leave him. The Admiral had befriended him in so many ways when he first went into the service that there was nothing else for your father to do but stay with him as long as he was needed. You were only six then, and I was afraid the long, hot trip might make you sick, so I left you with mamma while I went on for several weeks. Surely you remember something of that time.”
“No, just being in Kentucky is all I remember, and your going away for a while.”
“And the next time some business affairs of his own kept him in Washington, something very important. You were just getting over the measles and I didn’t dare take you, so you stayed with Tippy. So you see it wasn’t your father’s fault that he didn’t see you. He had expected you to be brought down to Washington.”