shake.

“Is it Daddy? What has happened? Bridget, Bridget, speak!” Her beseeching young voice cried out with instinctive fear.

“They’re bringing him in,” Bridget gasped at last. “He took sick in the office with a stroke. Dr. Ware’s with them. He sez you’re not to see him yet. He sez I’m to keep you in here till he comes—the Doctor, I mean.” Her words came in a tumult of confusion.

“Is—he—dead?” Julie asked. “Bridget, tell me the truth.”

It seemed to the girls that they lived an eternity in the second before the woman said: “No, no, he’s not dead. Whatever made you say such a fearful thing?” She buried her face in her apron and wept bitterly. “He’s tired out and sick altogether, the dear man. I’ve seen it comin’ this long time.”

Hester looked at Julie with a sort of awe. The sound of footsteps in the hall outside penetrated with ominous distinctness into the library.

Julie said tremulously, “Hester, dear, I am going to Dad; they shall not keep us away.”

“No, they shall not. We are not babies; we must go and help.”

“That’s what I wus after tellin’ the Doctor you’d say,” Bridget sobbed, “an’ it’s not for me to be lavin’ you here all alone, an’ me all over the house to onct. But if yez wouldn’t go now, darlin’s. Just wait till he’s took to his room, an’ ’twould be better—indeed, believe your old Bridget, it would!”

The impetuosity of youth in the shock of joy or sorrow is not to be checked. The girls went into the hall, to see a stretcher, on which lay their father, being borne up the stairs, while Dr. Ware and two men, who proved to be trained nurses, brought up the rear of the little procession.

“Dr. Ware,” whispered the girls, slipping up close to him with blanched faces, “we know—we must help, too.”

He took them each by the hand, as if they were little children, and turned them back before they could reach their father’s side.

“Dear little girls,” he said, gently, “you can help your father most by doing as I ask. It is hard to be shut out, I know, but you can do nothing now. Later, perhaps, you can do—everything. I will tell you frankly, he is a very sick man. I have no wish to hide anything from you, but we shall try and get him better—much. I have two experienced men, and Bridget here, and when we get him comfortably in bed you may come in for a moment. He may not regain consciousness for many hours. Will you trust me and be guided by my better judgment?” looking down at them earnestly.

“Yes, yes,” they both sobbed through the tears, now falling fast; “go to Dad—don’t think of us. We will do everything you say.”

“That pleases me—my brave little girls.” He went on into Mr. Dale’s chamber.

Left to themselves, they huddled together outside their father’s door, each trying to comfort the other. Peter Snooks, fully conscious that his young mistresses were in trouble, climbed into Julie’s lap and stuck his wet nose into her hand in true canine sympathy. Though they did not put it into words, both girls were conscious of a curious sense of remoteness from their father in being thus kept from him. This immediate, poignant grief stung them bitterly and prevented for the moment any thought of what the future might hold.

They never knew how long they had sat there on the stairs when Dr. Ware opened the bedroom door and beckoned them in. But they carried ever after a vivid impression of creeping stealthily to their father’s bed, stooping to kiss the dear face, from which there was no answering sign of recognition, and stealing softly out again. And in Julie’s mind there flashed always an accompanying picture—the remembrance of how, when they had reached the hall again, Hester had picked up a woe-begone, shivering little dog, and burying her face in his neck, whispered, brokenly: “Oh, Peter Snooks, how we were going—to—make—him—laugh!”

CHAPTER II

It was said of Mr. Dale by those of his friends’ wives who felt at liberty to discuss his affairs with their husbands, that his bringing up of his daughters was radically wrong. These whispers of feminine disapproval were occasionally wafted to the seemingly heedless father, who always smiled good-naturedly, yet was apparently blind to the advantages to be derived from the conventional course of training the young, for he continued to pursue his own methods with bland serenity.

Mrs. Dale had died when the girls were six and seven years old respectively. Up to that time they had lived quite like other children, going regularly to school and finding recreation in the pleasures common to their age and condition. The house in which at that time they lived was a somewhat pretentious mansion on the water side of Crana Street. Now to live in this sacred precinct, as every one in Radnor knows, gives an immediate claim to distinction. In the eyes of their neighbors, however, the Dales were not distinguished beyond the matter of their locality, for the family was not Radnor-bred, and this is an offense tolerated but never condoned in Radnor society.

The Dales had drifted there from some unheard-of (to Radnor) western town soon after the Civil War, while the country was still in a state of upheaval. Major Dale brought to the readjustment of his business the force and skill which won for him distinction on the battlefield, gradually transferred his interests from the western town eastward, and took root in Radnor, where he proceeded to build up a fortune. Not there, however, but back in Mrs. Dale’s old home, some years later, the girls were born. They came to Radnor as babies, and like their father took root; but Mrs. Dale, a semi-invalid, spent much of her time wearily traversing the country in search of health. She disliked Radnor, and made no attempt to cultivate the people. During her prolonged absences the children remained at home under the care of Bridget, a faithful servant who had come with them from the west.

With Mrs. Dale’s death the quiet placidity of the children’s life ceased. The house was closed, and Mr. Dale started immediately for California, taking the girls and Bridget with him. While there he became interested in railroad enterprises, which eventually extended through remote and varied sections of the country and kept him a bird of passage for many years. He built a private car and took his daughters everywhere with him, to the consternation of Radnor, which was kept informed of the magnate’s movements through the medium of the press.

The girls grew up in an atmosphere of devoted companionship, among scenes that were ever changing. They lived much in hotels, and for weeks at a time in their private car, “The Hustle,” which they never ceased to regard as a fascinating playhouse, and where their father, in the midst of his multitudinous cares, found time to watch their developing natures and teach them to grow in grace and spirit, as became the daughters of a soldier.

They were not wholly without lessons, for when they remained for any length of time in one place Mr. Dale’s private secretary was dispatched to find a good school, in which they were immediately placed; while Mr. Dale, who had theories of his own, trained their eyes to keen observation of what they saw and their minds to reason out the obscure according to their own lights. He was full of wisdom and patience and counsel, but he had a way of turning on them when they came for advice and saying, “What do you think?” in a manner that would have been startling to the average child, who is apt to think what he is told. This turning the