Father was five minutes late to supper. I don't know whether he looked at me or not. I didn't dare to look at him—until Aunt Jane said, in her chilliest manner:
"I trust your daughter had good lessons, Charles."
I had to look at him then. I just couldn't look anywhere else. So I was looking straight at him when he gave that funny little startled glance into my eyes. And into his eyes then there crept the funniest, dearest little understanding twinkle—and I suddenly realized that Father, Father, was laughing with me at a little secret between us. But 't was only for a second. The next moment his eyes were very grave and looking at Aunt Jane.
"I have no cause to complain—of my daughter's lessons to-day," he said very quietly. Then he glanced over at me again. But I had to look away quick, or I would have laughed right out.
When he got up from the table he said to me: "I shall expect to see you to-morrow in the library at four, Mary."
And Mary answered, "Yes, Father," polite and proper, as she should; but Marie inside was just chuckling with the joke of it all.
The next day I watched again at four for Father to come up the walk; and when he had come in I went down to the library. He was there in his pet seat before the fireplace. (Father always sits before the fireplace, whether there's a fire there or not. And sometimes he looks so funny sitting there, staring into those gray ashes just as if it was the liveliest kind of a fire he was watching.)
As I said, he was there, but I had to speak twice before he looked up.
Then, for a minute, he stared vaguely.
"Eh? Oh! Ah—er—yes, to be sure," he muttered then, "You have come with your books. Yes, I remember."
But there wasn't any twinkle in his eyes, nor the least little bit of an understanding smile; and I was disappointed. I had been looking for it. I knew then, when I felt so suddenly lost and heart-achey, that I had been expecting and planning all day on that twinkly understanding smile. You know you feel worse when you've just found a father and then lost him!