he narrow porch
that grew into the winding, serpentine veranda that belted the house,
how she read his books, how she went about with him on his daily rounds,
and how she had suddenly bloomed into a womanhood that made him feel shy
and abashed in her presence. He wondered where it was upon the way that
he had lost clasp of her hand: where did it drop from him? How did the
little fingers that he used to hold so tightly, slip into another's
hand? Her life's great decision had been made without consulting him;
when did he lose her confidence? She had gone her way an independent
soul--flown like a bird from the cage, he thought, and was going a way
that he felt would be a way of pain, and probably sorrow, yet he could
not stop her. All the experience of his life was worthless to her. All
that he knew of men, all that he feared of her lover, were as chaff in
the scales for her.

The Doctor, the boss, the friend, the man, withdrew from his
consciousness as he sat behind the vines and he became the impersonal,
universal father, wondering at the mystery of life. As he sat musing, he
heard a step behind him, and saw his daughter coming across the porch to
greet him. "Father," she said, "I have just this half hour that's to be
ours. I've planned for it all day. Mother has promised to keep every one
away."

The father's jaw began to tremble and his cherubic face to wrinkle in an
emotional pucker. He put the girl's arm about his neck, and rubbed her
hand upon his cheek. Then the father said softly:

"I never felt poor before until this minute." The girl looked
inquiringly at him and was about to protest. He stopped her: "Money
wouldn't do you much good--not all the money in the world."

"Well, father, I don't want money: we don't need it," said the girl.
"Why, we have a beautiful home and Tom is making--"

"It's not that, my dear--not that." He played with her hand a moment
longer. "I feel that I ought to give you something better than money;
my--my--well, my view of life--what they call philosophy of life. It's
the accumulation of fifty years of living." He fumbled in his pocket for
his pipe. "Let me smoke, and maybe I can talk."

"Laura--girl--" He puffed bashfully in a pause, and began again:
"There's a lot of Indiana--real common Eendiany," he mocked, "about your
father, and I just some way can't talk under pressure." He caressed the
girl's hand and pulled at his pipe as one giving birth to a system of
philosophy. Yet he