“Oh, Papa, we’ve got you at last! Why didn’t you come? We’ve been praying, Lucy and me, every night for you, and we thought you’d never come back. Mama said you’d gone a long, long way—”
Ruth was choking with emotion, and yet she smiled through her tears. She knew those tiny hands were deep down in the man’s soul sweeping his heart-strings with wild, sweet music.
The brunette looked across the table into the trembling face of the fair one. The dark eyes were now tranquil, whatever the storm within. A faint sinile suffused her face with mantling blushes.
Lucy pulled the boy’s arms from around her father’s neck and slipped her own softer, slender ones there. She kissed him, and laid her brown curls on his breast. Her little hands patted his broad shoulder, and she murmured:
“Papa, dear, I love you!”
Kate attempted to rise, bit her lip, and fairly hissed in Gordon’s ear:
“End this scene! Find another table!”
Gordon drew Lucy’s arm from his neck and whispered:
“They are all filled, my dear.”
The blue eyes blazed with fury as she cried under her breath: