Something in the expression of her father’s face struck her. She was only thirteen, but an older intuition from her coming womanhood made her say impulsively, with all her heart, “Father, you love it so ... why don’t you ... didn’t you ever try to write poetry, too?”
To her confusion, a slow, deep flush mounted all over her father’s face. He looked down at the book in silence.
Helen was as horrified as if she had flung open the door of a secret sanctuary in a temple. She jumped up from the sofa, and not understanding her father, nor herself, nor what she was doing, “Oh, Father, dear,” she murmured, her arms around his neck.
Henry and his puppy looked up at them sleepily. “Is it bedtime?” asked Henry.
Helen went to sleep that night, still feeling the great hug Father had given her. She had never felt Father love her so much before.
Downstairs before he went to bed her father, turning over the pages of a book, was reading,
“And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope.”
“Come, come!” he said to himself. “Terence, this is stupid stuff, you eat your victuals fast enough. We’ll have to call this day one of our failures. I’d better get it over with and start another.” His heart was still bleeding to the old wound he had thought healed and forgotten for years, which Helen’s sudden question had torn open. Good Heavens, weren’t you safe from those old buried griefs until you were actually under the sod?