"I've got a touch o' dyspepsy, Louisianny," he said, "an' the knockin' hes kinder giv me a headache. I'll go to bed airly."
CHAPTER XII.
"MEBBE."
She had been so full of her own sharp pain and humiliation during the first few days that perhaps she had not been so quick to see as she would otherwise have been, but the time soon came when she awakened to a bewildered sense of new and strange trouble. She scarcely knew when it was that she first began to fancy that some change had taken place in her father. It was a change she could not comprehend when she recognized its presence. It was no alteration of his old, slow, quiet faithfulness to her. He had never been so faithfully tender. The first thing which awakened her thought of change was his redoubled tenderness. She found that he watched her constantly, in a patient, anxious way. When they were together she often discovered that he kept his eyes fixed upon her when he thought she was not aware of his gaze. He seemed reluctant to leave her alone, and continually managed to be near her, and yet it grew upon her at last that the old, homely good-fellowship between them had somehow been broken in upon, and existed no longer. It was not that he loved her any less—she was sure of that; but she had lost something, without knowing when or how she had lost it, or even exactly what it was. But his anxiety to please her grew day by day. He hurried the men who were at work upon the house.
"Louisianny, she'll enjoy it when it's done," he said to them. "Hurry up, boys, an' do yer plum best."
She had been at home about two weeks when he began to drive over to the nearest depot every day at "train time." It was about three miles distant, and he went over for several days in his spring wagon. At first he said nothing of his reason for making the journey, but one morning, as he stood at his horses' heads, he said to Louisiana, without turning to look at her, and affecting to be very busy with some portion of the harness:
"I've ben expectin' of some things fer a day or so, an' they haint come. I wasn't sure when I oughter to look fer 'em—mebbe I've ben lookin' too soon—fer they haint come yet."
"Where were they to come from?" she asked.
"From—from New York City."