was dumb as he sat before the warm glow of the
passing torch of life which was shining from his daughter's face.
Finally he burst forth, piping impatience at his own embarrassment.

"I tell you, daughter, it's just naturally hell to be pore." The girl
saw his twitching mouth and the impotence of his swimming eyes; but
before she could protest he checked her.

"Pore! Pore!" he repeated hopelessly. "Why, if we had a million, I would
still be just common, ornery, doless pore folks--tongue-tied and
helpless, and I couldn't give you nothin--nothin!" he cried, "but just
rubbish! Yet there are so many things I'd like to give you, Laura--so
many, many things!" he repeated. "God Almighty's put a terrible
hog-tight inheritance tax on experience, girl!" He smiled a crooked,
tearful little smile--looked up into her eyes in dog-like wistfulness as
he continued: "I'd like to give you some of mine--some of the wisdom
I've got one way and another--but, Lord, Lord," he wailed, "I can't. The
divine inheritance tax bars me." He patted her with one hand, holding
his smoldering pipe in the other. Then he shrilled out in the impotence
of his pain: "I just must give you this, Laura: Whatever comes and
whatever goes--and lots of sad things will come and lots of sad things
will go, too, for that matter--always remember this: Happiness is from
the heart out--not from the world in! Do you understand, child--do you?"

The girl smiled and petted him, but he saw that he hadn't reached her
consciousness. He puffed at a dead pipe a moment, then he cried as he
beat his hands together in despair: "I suppose it's no use. It's no use.
But you can at least remember these words, Laura, and some time the
meaning will get to you. Always carry your happiness under your bonnet!
It's the only thing I can give you--out of all my store!"

The girl put her arm about him and pressed closely to him, and they
rose, as she said: "Why, father--I understand. Of course I understand.
Don't you see I understand, father?"

She spoke eagerly and clasped her arms tighter about the pudgy little
figure. They stood quietly a moment, as the father looked earnestly,
dog-wise, up into her face, as if trying by his very gaze to transmit
his loving wisdom. Then, as he found voice: "No, Laura, probably you'll
need fifty years to understand; but look over on the hill across the
valley at the moving cloud shadows. They are only shadows--not
realities. They are just unrealities that