e answers. Just to look at you was enough. You are
miserable, Daddy dear, and, because you are you, you won't admit it. But
you've got to; you've got to tell me the whole story. I want to know all
about everything."

The wind was taken completely out of Daniel's sails. He could only
sit there, guilt written plainly upon his face, and stammer frantic
protestations.

"No, no," he declared. "It ain't so. You're all wrong, Gertie. You're
way off the course. The idea of you sayin' your mother was neglectin'
me."

"I didn't say it. You have said it a dozen times, but I haven't."

"_I_ said it? I never. Your mother is a fine woman, Gertie; as good a
woman as ever was."

"I know that. And she would not neglect you wilfully for the world. But
she has not had experience. She takes people and things at their face
value. She doesn't understand--Why are you smiling? Is it so funny?"

Captain Dan rubbed the smile from his lips. In spite of his perturbation
he had been amused for the moment.

"Why," he observed, "I don't know as 'tis, but--but--well, I couldn't
help wonderin' how old you'd got to be in the last couple of months,
Gertie. You talk as if you was the grandmother and your ma and I were
young ones just out of school. About how much experience have YOU had,
young lady? now that we're speakin' of it."

Gertrude's earnestness was too real to be shaken by this pertinent
inquiry.

"I have had a good deal," she declared. "One can get a lot of experience
in college. There are as many kinds of character there, on a small
scale, as anywhere I know. I have seen girls--but there! this is all
irrelevant, away from the subject. You ARE neglected, Daddy; you are
lonely and miserable. Now, I want you to tell me all about it."

But her father had, in a measure, recovered his composure, and he
declined to tell. He had been longing for a confidant, and here was the
one he had longed for most; but his sense of loyalty to Serena kept him
silent.

"There's nothin' to tell," he vowed stoutly. "I'm all right. You're
dreamin', Gertie."

"Nonsense! I shall lose patience with you pretty soon, and I don't want
to. Judging by what I have seen and learned so far, I am likely to need
a great deal of patience in this house, and I can't waste any. Mother
has gone head over heels into this precious Ladies of Honor work of
hers, hasn't she?"

"We-ll, she's terrible interested in it, of course; but she's so smart
anyhow, and here in Scarfor