“It’s my hair,” said Lydia, “and my skirts.”

“Of course,” growled Amos, “I realize that I count only as Lydia’s father.  Still I think you ought to recognize me, anyhow.”

The two men clasped hands.  “Well, Amos?”

“It’s been a long time between drinks, John.”

“I know it, Amos, but my chore’s done.  Now, I’ll stay home and enjoy life.  Lydia, is it too hot for waffles and coffee, for supper?  Lord, I’ve dreamed of those old days and of this meeting for nine months.”

“It’s not too hot for anything on earth you can ask for,” returned Lydia, beginning to roll up her sleeves.  “I’ll go right in and start them now.”

John looked after her, at the lengthened skirts, at the gold braids wrapped round her head.  “She doesn’t change except in size, thank God,” he said.

“Oh, she gets prettier,” said Amos, carelessly.  “She’s sort of grown up to her mouth, and the way she wears her hair shows the fine set of her head.  She’s improved a lot.”

“She has not!  Amos, you never did appreciate her.  She couldn’t be any more charming now than she was as a kiddie.”

Amos put an affectionate hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “You always were an old fool, John.  Come up and peel your coat, then take a look at the garden.  There’s Lizzie, dying to speak to you.”

Levine looked around the living-room, complacently.  “Jove, isn’t it fine!  Most homelike place in America.  Lydia’s been fixing up the old mahogany, eh?”

“Yes!  One of the professors told her it was O. K., so she got a book out of the library on old furniture and now we are contented and strictly up to date.  These damned rugs though, I can’t get her to tack ’em down.  They’re just like so many rags on the floor!  I never had a chance to tell you what she did to my mahogany arm chair, did I?”

He retailed the story of Willis’ first call and John roared though he murmured, “Poor kiddie,” as he did so.

“She’s given me over to my sins, though, lately,” Amos went on, with the faint twinkle in his eyes that Lydia had inherited.  “She brought me up by hand, for a long time, hid my pipes, wanted me to manicure my nails, wouldn’t let me eat in my shirt sleeves or drink my coffee out of the saucer.  But her friend, Willis, likes me, as is,—­so she’s let me backslide without a murmur.”

Amos paused and looked out at the shimmering lake.  “John, I wish I had five daughters.  There’s nothing like ’em in the world.”

Levine did not answer for a moment, while his gaze followed Amos’ out over the familiar outline of blue water and far green hills.

“Sometimes, Amos,” he muttered, finally, “I feel as if my whole life had been wasted.”

It was an extraordinarily pleasant supper.  John and Amos, in their shirt sleeves, ate waffles till Lydia declared that both the batter and her strength were exhausted.  Indians were not mentioned.  Levine was in a reminiscent mood and told stories of his boyhood on a Northern Vermont farm and old Lizzie for the first time in Lydia’s remembrance told of some of the beaux she had had when her father was the richest farmer round Lake City.