“Yes, but twenty dollars will not buy it,” she replied, thinking of Dr. Lake’s anxious face as she had seen it that day.
At night, alone in the darkness, there were a few tears that no one would ever know about. Her joy in her accepted work was nothing to Ralph Towne. He did not know about her book and if he knew—would he care?
VIII.—A NOTE OUT OF TUNE.
The blossom storm came and blew away the apple blossoms, the heavy fragrance of the lilacs died, and the shrubbery became again only a mass of green leaves and ugly, crooked stems; but amid this, something happened to Tessa; something that was worth as much to her as any happenings that came before it; something that had its beginning when she was a little school-girl running along the planks and teasing Felix Harrison. How much certain jarring words spoken that day and how much a certain bit of news influenced this happening, she, in her rigid self-analysis, could not determine!
She arose from the breakfast table at the same instant with her father, saying: “Father, I will walk to the corner with you.”
“We were two souls with one thought,” he replied. “I intended to ask you for a few minutes.”
They crossed the street to the planks. She slipped her arm through his, and as he took the fingers on his arm with a warm grasp, she said; “I never want any lover but you, my dear old father.”
“Nonsense, child! Only girls who have had a heart-break say such things to their old fathers, and your heart is as good as new, I am sure. Tessa, I want to see you married before I die.”
“May you live till you see me married,” she answered merrily. “What an old mummy you will be!”
“I have been thinking of something that I want to say to you. I am an old man and I am not young for my age—”