She gulped and choked, her small quivering and scarlet face with the pitiful eyes gazing down into his—and the years rolled away in the old man's sight, and his daughter was back at his side again. What was she saying in that pleading voice, as she knelt and clasped his shaking hand?
"Except—except—I'm sorry, I am! Oh—I didn't think how sad you were, and can't you love me just a bit?"
And what were Hepsie's feelings then when the old man rose, and seizing her in his arms, cried brokenly:
"Oh, child, if only your mother had said the same—only just once in the midst of my anger—but she passed her father by, she passed him by! And never a word in all these years of my loneliness and pain! My heart is breaking, for all its pride!"
"She wrote again and again," declared Hepsie, and he started, and such a frown came then, that she was quite frightened, though she repeated, "Indeed she did, and she loves you still."
"Then," said he, "they never reached me! Some one has come between us. But never mind that now. I must go to your mother. Come," he added, "I must fetch my girl back to her home again, until her husband claims her from me."
A Surprise
But when the two reached the little house in the lane a surprise awaited them. They found Mrs. Erldon in her husband's arms. He had returned unexpectedly, having, as a successful prospector for gold, done well enough to return home at once to fetch his wife and child.
No words could describe the joy in his wife's heart when her father took their hands and asked their forgiveness for years of estrangement, and told the tale of the intercepted letters, which he might never have discovered had it not been for little Hepsie's Christmas visit of peace and goodwill.
Hepsie is learning to control that little tongue of hers now, and she has, framed in her room, a verse that mother wrote for Hepsie especially: