"Now, you may get your typewriter ready for work," he said presently. "Put in a sheet of this paper," taking some from a drawer in the table and laying it beside the machine, "date it, and in a moment I will tell you what to say."
He had already instructed her carefully in punctuation and paragraphing: spelling also; and, with an occasional direction in regard to such matters, she did her work well.
She was full of joy when at the close of the business he bestowed upon her a judicious amount of praise and said that she had proved a great help to him, shortening his labor very considerably.
"I think," he concluded, "that before long my dear eldest daughter will prove a valuable amanuensis for me."
"Papa, I am so glad!" she cried, her cheeks flushing and her eyes sparkling. "Oh, there is nothing else in the world that I enjoy so much as being a help and comfort to my dear, dear father!"
"My precious little daughter," he responded, "words cannot express the love your father feels for you. Now there is one letter that I wish to write with my own hand, and while I am doing that you may amuse yourself in any way you like."
"May I read this, papa?" she asked, taking up a magazine.
"Yes," he said, and she went quietly from the room with it in her hand.
She seated herself on the back veranda, read a short story, then stole softly back to the library door to see if her father had finished his letter so that she might talk to him.
But some one else was there; a stranger she thought, though she did not get a view of his face.