"I don't think you have any better right to expose yourself than I," she said, with spirit. "You have children of your own, and a wife to think of. Your life is a full one, rounded out and devoted to a work that is very great. Mine is only beginning; nothing has come from it yet; I have done nothing. It all lies before me and I won't stand aloof as if I were outside of laboring humanity, while there is sickness to be fought. I'm going with you."
She came to me.
"I hope you don't think I'm very bad, Daddy?" she said. "I'm sorry to give you so much trouble, but something tells me I must go. I just have to!"
I looked at her, as she walked rapidly away with the parson, and then sat down on the steamer chair that had been brought up again, and for the first time I felt that age was creeping up on me. It looks as if all of us, ill or hale, poor or rich, are but the playthings of nature, bits of flotsam on the ocean of human passions. Your poor dear sister, Jennie, died young, and I believe that her life with me was a happy one as long as she was spared. After a little while Helen began to fill some of the emptiness she had left, but now there come again to me memories of a sweet face, uplifted lovingly to my own, and I am overcome with a sense of loss indescribable. And yet this is mingled with some pride. My daughter is no doll-like creature, no romantic, unpractical fool destined to be nothing but a clog to the man who may join his life to hers. She will never lag behind and cry for help, and hers will be the power to walk side by side with him. She can never be a mere bauble, and will play her own part.
Oh! Jennie. The pluck of the child, the readiness with which she wants to give the best of herself because she thinks it right and just, and because she refuses to concede to others a monopoly of helpful love!
That young man, if he lives, will be a fit mate for any woman, but I swear to you that if it comes to that I will insist upon paying the salary of some man to take his place. I want my girl nearer to me than in Sweetapple Cove!
After a time I pulled out the letter Mr. Barnett had handed me. It was from that young rascal Harry Lawrence. He says he's heard from you about that caribou shooting, and wants to come up anyway and find out how I look after my tough summer in this neck of the woods, and he's never been to Newfoundland anyway, etc., etc.
Of course that boy cares as much for my looks as for those of the Egyptian Sphinx. At one time I really hoped that Helen and he, since she would have to leave me some day, might grow fond of one another. I know how devoted he is to my girl, but I'm afraid she has made her own choice. I must write to Harry that we shall be leaving before long and that it will be too late for him to come now,—as, indeed, it is. What puzzles me is that, on his own part, that doctor never has seemed to be anything but a good friend to Helen. I suppose I was an old fool, and never saw things that went on under my nose. Poor Harry, he's such a splendid lad, and his father was my dearest friend, as you know.
Helen has been gone for hours, and I'm going to send Susie after her. In the meanwhile I have sought to possess my soul in patience by writing to you.
Affectionately yours,
WALTER