There was something very pleading in his voice, it seemed to me.

“Perhaps in a day or two it won’t—­it won’t matter much what I shall do, Daddy dear,” I answered.

He took me and pressed me to his breast and I felt as if many years were passing away, and I was again the desolate little girl who used to come to him with her woes, when a kitten died or a doll was broken.  He sat again in his armchair, and I rested on the arm.

“Let us talk as in the old days, girlie,” he said.  “Let us be the loving friends we’ve been all these years.  I want to see you happy.  Your happiness is the only thing in the world that really concerns me now.  To obtain it for you I would spend my last cent and give the last drop of my blood.  You believe me, don’t you?”

“Indeed I do, Daddy dear,” I answered.  “I don’t deserve such kindness.  I’m afraid I am a very selfish girl.”

“You haven’t an atom of selfishness in you, Helen.  You are a woman, a true, strong, loving woman.  We shall remain here as long as you want to.  Now that there is another doctor here I am not so much afraid for you.  If Grant should—­should not recover, your old Dad’s love may comfort you.  And if, as I earnestly hope, he does get well, then come to me and tell me what you want.  It shall be yours, girlie, with all my love.  That’s what I wanted to say.”

I slipped off the arm of the chair, and sat down at his feet, looking up at him, through the blur that was in my eyes.

“I—­I hardly dare hope he will get well, Daddy,” I said, “and—­and I don’t know yet whether he loves me or not.  This evening, in his delirium, he called me his darling, but never before this has he ever said a word of love to me.  He’s just been a friend to me, Daddy, such a friend!”

“How can he help loving you?” said the dear old man.

But I did not answer, and for a time we remained in silence, watching the wood fire in the tiny chimney, until Susie came in.

“Th’ kittle’s biled,” she announced.  “Me cousin Hyatt he’ve brung some meat off’n the mash, an’ I briled some.”

“I’m not very hungry, Susie,” I told her.

“Nor me neither, ma’am, with all them goin’-ons,” she confided.  “But what’s th’ use o’ despisin’ any of th’ Lord’s blessin’s, specially when they gits kinder scarce?”

So Daddy and I had our supper together, very comfortably, and really I did manage to eat a little, because the thought struck me that a girl couldn’t possibly be beyond all hope of comfort as long as she had such a Dad, and I did my best to be brave.  But soon after we had finished I became very restless and nervous, and Dad looked at me and patted my hand.

“I expect you’d better run along, my dear,” he told me.  “But you must really try to have some rest to-night.  If that doctor promised to sit up you might just as well have a little sleep.  You mustn’t be ill, you know, for we all need you too much for that.”