t my fault. _I_ was
there all ready. It wasn't my blame that he wasn't there to hear me.
But he might remember and come back. Well, if he did, _I'd_ be there.
So I went to one of those bookcases and pulled out a touch-me-not
book from behind the glass door. Then I sat down and read till the
supper-bell rang.

Father was five minutes late to supper. I don't know whether he looked
at me or not. I didn't dare to look at him--until Aunt Jane said, in
her chilliest manner:

"I trust your daughter had good lessons, Charles."

I _had_ to look at him then. I just couldn't look anywhere else. So I
was looking straight at him when he gave that funny little startled
glance into my eyes. And into his eyes then there crept the funniest,
dearest little understanding twinkle--and I suddenly realized that
Father, _Father_, was laughing with me at a little secret between
_us_. But 't was only for a second. The next moment his eyes were very
grave and looking at Aunt Jane.

"I have no cause to complain--of my daughter's lessons to-day," he
said very quietly. Then he glanced over at me again. But I had to look
away _quick_, or I would have laughed right out.

When he got up from the table he said to me: "I shall expect to see
you to-morrow in the library at four, Mary."

And Mary answered, "Yes, Father," polite and proper, as she should;
but Marie inside was just chuckling with the joke of it all.

The next day I watched again at four for Father to come up the walk;
and when he had come in I went down to the library. He was there in
his pet seat before the fireplace. (Father always sits before the
fireplace, whether there's a fire there or not. And sometimes he looks
_so_ funny sitting there, staring into those gray ashes just as if it
was the liveliest kind of a fire he was watching.)

As I said, he was there, but I had to speak twice before he looked up.
Then, for a minute, he stared vaguely.

"Eh? Oh! Ah--er--yes, to be sure," he muttered then, "You have come
with your books. Yes, I remember."

But there wasn't any twinkle in his eyes, nor the least little bit of
an understanding smile; and I _was_ disappointed. I _had_ been looking
for it. I knew then, when I felt so suddenly lost and heart-achey,
that I had been expecting and planning all day on that twinkly
understanding smile. You know you feel worse when you've just found a
father and then lost him!

And I had lost him. I knew it the minute he sighed and frowned and