id="page_14" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="14"/> tables began in their teens, whereby they came to have opinions without being opinionated, for, though requiring them to think out every subject carefully, he yet guided them with a firm hand, giving them in every sort of discussion the wisdom of his wide experience. He was a loving, indulgent father, and the girls adored him, but no sterner disciplinarian ever held sway. Implicit and immediate obedience he demanded—no questioning of his higher authority.

He taught them, too, much of the old-world philosophy, which he had imbibed from extensive reading. They listened to him wonderingly, their eager young minds drinking in the beauty of what he said, but failing at that age to grasp the breadth and depth of all the truths he told them. Sometimes he almost forgot that they were children.

When Julie was twenty and Hester nineteen he took them to Europe. Bridget and Peter Snooks completed the party. They roamed about for a year, and just before they were to sail for home late in the summer Mr. Dale informed the girls that he intended to sell out his large railroad interests; he was tired of their unsettled life, and thought they would all enjoy the novelty of opening their house and taking up their abode in Radnor. Radnor had long ceased to be anything more than a name to the girls, but the proposition opened up joyous possibilities of “making a home for Dad.”

“I will take you down to Cousin Nancy’s in Virginia when we land,” he had said to them in London, “and leave you there a few weeks; she has been begging for a visit from us this long while. Bridget and I will open the house in Radnor and get everything in order; then you can come up and run the establishment and queen it over your old Dad in royal fashion.”

This program had been successfully carried out, except that it could scarcely be said that the girls ran the establishment, for the responsibility lay with Bridget, who assumed the duties of housekeeper—duties she guarded jealously and performed with such skill that there was not a better managed house on the water side of Crana Street. This Radnor people knew through that mysterious agency by which a neighborhood keeps in touch with itself.

After years spent in the narrow confines of a car, however luxurious, and the necessarily limited quarters of hotels, the girls reveled in the spacious house, over which they spread themselves in an amusing fashion, sleeping in turn in the various bedrooms by way of getting acquainted with them all over again, Julie said, and with reckless prodigality hanging some portion of their wardrobe in every closet in the house.

At the end of their first week in Radnor, Hester amused her father by telling him she thought she should enjoy housekeeping exceedingly if they had an elevator, a menu and “The Hustle” side-tracked in the back yard. Reluctantly she admitted that the yard could scarcely be made to hold it, but at least, she suggested airily, he might build a float and anchor the car at their back door on the river. The new life really seemed to her incomplete without it.

Hester at twenty was a laughing, dancing sprite, yet with a certain quaintness and matureness of mind that amused and delighted her father’s friends. She was slim and dark, with a piquant face and fascinating hazel eyes that shot out mischievous lights. They were unusual eyes, and very beautiful with their fringe of long dark lashes; but she did not think so, and compared them scornfully to a cat’s—the only animal she hated. If she could be said to have any vanity it was for her hands, which came in for a considerable share of her attention, and she went to bed in gloves every night of her life.

Julie, whose hands were not a matter of comment, dispensed with this bed-time ceremony, and usually devoted most of her time before retiring to a vigorous brushing of her rebellious yellow hair, which, when it was let alone, rioted all over her head in such babyish curls that her father always called her “Curly Locks.” Her eyes were violet—her lashes and brows dark, like Hester’s, which gave her a most remarkable contrast of coloring. From her mother she had inherited a delicate constitution, and lacked the buoyancy of Hester’s gay spirits; nevertheless, she had a keen sense of humor and laughed immoderately on all occasions at her sister, whom she considered altogether the cleverest and most amusing person she knew. And they knew many delightful people from one end of the country to the other—everywhere except in Radnor, where society was waiting for Mr. Dale formally to present his daughters before setting the seal of its approval upon them.

The second day following that on which Mr. Dale was brought home ill, Dr. Ware stayed longer than usual with his patient and came out of the sickroom with a grave face. In the hall the girls were waiting for him as usual.

“My dears,” he said, abruptly, drawing them into the library, “you have to know the worst, and there is no one but me to tell you.” For a moment he hesitated. “Your father’s illness is caused by his financial ruin—his entire fortune has been swept away. He has lost everything, and the shock of his failure has paralyzed him.” For a moment neither spoke; each girl felt that she could hear her heart beat in the awful silence of the room. Then Julie said:

“Won’t Daddy soon be better? Oh, you can’t mean he will always be sick like this?” Her eyes were black with pain and apprehension.

“He will never move about again. Physically he may suffer very little; the anguish will come through the consciousness of his helplessness——”

“We will not let him feel that,” interrupted Julie, throwing up her head. “Hester and I are strong.”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Thank God for that, for you’ve a hard fight ahead of you.”

Hester crept close to his side. “Will you tell us more about it, please,” she whispered in a strange, tense voice; “it’s so—so difficult to understand.”

“Of course it is, dear,” putting his arm around her. “Things began to go wrong a year ago. Your father felt it, and nearly abandoned the European trip, then went after all, feeling absolute need of rest and hoping he had left the snarl sufficiently straightened out to go on without him. But things went from bad to worse, and he came back to more complications than any one man could manage. Even then he might have pulled through somehow if that western road in which he had so largely invested had not smashed and carried him down with it. You don’t want the details, Hester.”

“No,” she answered, “it is enough that the thing is.”

He looked at her intently, as if astonished that so philosophic a statement should come from so young a person.

“Shall we have to give up the house, and—and ‘The Hustle,’ and—everything?” asked Julie.

“I’m afraid so, Julie dear. That is especially what I want to talk to you about to-day—your future. I want you to leave it all to me.”

“Oh, no, no!” she cried, “you’re good, so good, but we can’t do that. We must look the future squarely in the face, and bravely, must we not, Hester?” turning appealingly to her sister. “I’m sure that is what Daddy would say.”

“Julie, don’t you be afraid; we’ll just do everything—somehow!” Hester flung out her young arms with a sweeping movement as if she meant to gather in all their perplexities and conquer them. “If Dr. Ware will help us and advise us, we’ll try to get our feet down on something—somewhere. Yours aren’t very big,” she said, with a piteous attempt at her old lightness, “but mine are. I feel just now as if