. And she thought how her
father was coming home, and she thought of all her horrible
imaginations of the night before as she might have thought of a
legion of routed fiends. And soon Samson Rawdy drove her father into
the grounds, and she ran to the door. She opened it and went to the
carriage with her arms extended, but he got out himself, laughing.

"Did you think I wanted help, honey?" he said, but though he laughed,
he walked weakly and his face was very pale.

He paid Samson Rawdy, who opened his mouth as if to say something,
then looked at Carroll's pale face and changed his mind, getting
rather stiffly up on his seat--he was growing stout--and driving away.

"Oh, papa!" Charlotte said, slipping her arm through his and nestling
close up to him as they went into the house.

Carroll bent down and kissed her. "Papa's poor little girl!" he said.
"It was mighty hard on her, wasn't it?"

"Oh, papa, you are not hurt very badly?"

"Not hurt at all, sweetheart. I, to put it simply, tumbled down on
the ice and hit my head, and was so stunned that I did not come to
myself until it was too late for the last train."

"Oh, papa, where were you? Did they carry you to a hospital?"

"No, dear. I was very near a man who used to keep my books before I
gave up my office, and he had me carried to his house, which was near
by, and he and his sister did everything for me, they and their
doctor."

"They must be such good people!" said Charlotte.

"Such good people that I can never pay them," said Carroll, in an odd
voice. They had entered the house and were going through the hall.
"Not in other ways than money," he added, quickly. "I owe him
nothing." It was the first time that Carroll had ever attempted to
justify himself to his child, but at that moment the sting of
thinking that she might suspect that he owed Allbright money was more
than he could bear.

When they were in the dining-room, Carroll turned and looked at
Charlotte. "My poor little girl! What did you think, and what did you
do?" said he.

She threw her arms around his neck again and clung to him. "Oh, papa,
when you didn't come, when the last train went by and you didn't
come, I thought--"

"Poor little sweetheart!"

"I went down to the six-o'clock train, and then I waited for the
next, and then I came home, and I watched, and the telegraph-boy came
to tell me there was no telegram, and I had the dinner keeping warm
on the back of the range; it was beef