“Then you really would not take—I mean send him back?”
“No,” said Helen. “I think, perhaps, I could help you in all this.”
“My dear Helen,” cried the doctor eagerly. “My dear child, you don’t know how pleased you make me. I felt that for your sake I must take him back.”
“For my sake?” exclaimed Helen.
“Yes; that it was too bad to expose you to the petty annoyances and troubles likely to come from keeping him. But if you feel that you could put up with it till we have tamed him down—”
Helen rose from her chair, and went behind her father’s, to lay her hands upon his shoulders, when he took them in
his, and crossed them upon his breast, so as to draw her face down over his shoulder.
“My dear father,” she said, as she laid her cheek against his, “I don’t know—I cannot explain, but this boy seems to have won his way with me very strangely, and I should be deeply grieved if you sent him away.”
“My dear Helen, you’ve taken a load off my mind. There, go and fetch the poor fellow down. He wanted his dinner two hours ago, and he must be starved.”