let poor Daddy worry any longer about me.

"Come for me, Yves," I told the man, "if he seems worse, or if there is
anything I can do."

He came to me, and I saw that his eyes were full of tears as I put my
hand out to him. He lifted it up to his lips with a sob.

So we two hurried back home. By this time the wind had abated a little,
and the moon was shining through some great rifts in the clouds, the
waters of the cove reflecting a shiny path. The road was no longer in
darkness; I could see it dimly, rising to higher ground.

I will write again very soon,
Your loving
HELEN.

CHAPTER XVII

_From Mr. Walter B. Jelliffe to Miss Jane Van Zandt_

_My dear Jennie_:

You know I'm no great hand at letter writing when I have no stenographer
at hand. It may not be courteous of me to say I am writing to you because
I am the lonesomest old party you have seen in a half a century, but you
have your dear sister's sweet disposition, and I know you will forgive
me. I am all alone in this packing-box of a house, when I expected to be
at sea and sailing for Newport to say how d'you do on my way to New York.
I wanted to have the pleasure of seeing your kindly face and of having
you take that niece of yours in hand for a time. The girl is getting
beyond me, and when I want to bluster she looks at me just as her mother
used to and I get so weak that you could knock me over with a feather.
She looks so much like Dorothy that sometimes I have to pinch myself to
make sure it is not her mother sitting at the other end of the table.

When a man is sixty, and begins to think he owns his fair share of the
earth, or even a bit more, I daresay that it does him good to be humbled
a little, but it's a hard thing to become used to. Hitherto when Helen
wanted anything I always let her have it, for on the whole she has always
been sensible in her desires and requests, or maybe I have been an old
fool. Didn't some Frenchman say once that an old man is a fellow who
thinks himself wise because he's been a fool longer than other people?
Anyway, that's me! For the last few days I have been itching to scrap
with her, and I find she minds me about as much as the man in the moon.

Of course, Jennie, it is a disgruntled old brother-in-law who writes
this, and you will have to make allowances.

Would you believe that last night she went out and remained till after
midnight in a sailor's house, watching a sick child, after I had objected
to