"Oh, I understand you perfectly," smiled the Intruding Lady. "Then what are you going to teach me?" quivered Daphne. "There are so many things I want to know! Who Lost Man was! Why people like the Outlaw _are_! Did--did Sheridan Kaire--break his word on purpose to free me?" From the Intruding Lady's merry eyes a most astonishing tear rolled suddenly. "First of all, Little Girl," she said, "I'm going [240] to try very--very hard to teach you to love me!" "I'm--I'm enjoying my first lesson very much thank you," smiled Daphne faintly. "Heaven bless my soul!" cried her father quite abruptly, "I'd forgotten all about smoking!" Adroitly with match and cigarette he proceeded to remedy the omission, brooding thoughtfully all the while on his daughter's wistful young face the positive, generous womanliness of his own chosen mate the splendid clean-limbed, clean-souled promise of the young lad before him. With more emotion than he cared to show he bent down suddenly and gathered Creep-Mouse into his arms. "There--there isn't a man in the world," he affirmed, "who has as good a--as good a dog as I have!" "'Dog?'" deprecated Richard Wiltoner quite unexpectedly. "'Family I guess is what you mean!'" "But even yet," questioned Daphne worriedly of the Intruding Lady, "everything's been so sudden and queer--even yet I don't quite seem to realize just how you figure in my story?" [241] "Why, I don't suppose I figure at all," smiled the Intruding Lady very modestly, "except in so far as I do my bit towards making a Happy Ending. "'Happy Ending?'" quickened Jaffrey Bretton. "Why this--is just the Happy Beginning!" THE END. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old-Dad, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott