"Oh, I couldn't speak of her! You don't understand that it's because of Phil I ought to go! You thought I was heartless about it, but it's not that I don't care. I'm afraid to see Phil! I'm afraid!"
"Don't you worry about Phil," he answered, digging the tears out of his eyes with his knuckles. "Phil's all right," he concluded.
He crossed the hall and when he returned, carrying a bulky photograph album, she had regained her composure, and stood holding her hands to the fire.
"Sit here and look at Phil: I've got all her pictures from the time she was a baby. I guess you remember these first ones."
She sat down by the center table and he turned up the gas in the blue-shaded lamp. She passed the baby pictures quickly, but looked closely at those that showed her daughter at school age. Under each photograph Amzi had written the date, so that as a record the collection was complete. There were half a dozen disclosures of Phil in her M.H.S. sweater. Amzi called attention to these with a chuckle.
"Nearly killed the girls; Phil chasing round town in that thing! And here she's trigged out in her graduating clothes. I guess you'd have been proud of her that night. Her piece was about tramp dogs; funniest thing you ever heard! And here she is—let me see—yes, that was last summer. Those other things are just little snapshots; and here's a group showing Phil with her class. Phil in front—she was the head of her class all right!" he ended proudly.
Whatever emotions may have been aroused by this pictorial review of her child's life, Lois outwardly made no sign. She murmured her pleasure at one and another of the pictures, looked closely at the latest in point of time, sighed and closed the book.
"She looks like me, I suppose. Is she taller?"
"The least bit, maybe; but you're as like as two peas," answered Amzi; and then added, with the diffidence of a man unused to graceful speeches, "I guess you'd almost pass for sisters. By George, Lois, you're a wonder! You ain't a year older!"
"That's no compliment, Amzi! I ought to have changed," she replied soberly. "But there's gray in my hair if you know where to look, and the wrinkles are getting busy."