Mr. Winship has grown old within the year. His hair has whitened and his bushy eyebrows; but the grip of his hand, the sound of his homely speech, seemed to wake me from some ugly dream. Here we were together again in the wholesome daylight, Father Winship, little Helen 'Lizy and the Schoolmaster, and all must yet be well. Mr. Winship sighed with deep content as he sank into a chair, his eyes scarcely leaving Helen. He owned himself beat out and glad of a dish of tea; but when Clesta had served him in her scuttling crab fashion, he would stop in the middle of a sentence, with saucer half lifted, to gaze with perplexed, wistful tenderness at his stately daughter. She is the child of his old age; I think he must be long past sixty, and fast growing feeble. The instinct of father love has grown in him so refined that he sees the soul and not the envelope. Grand and beautiful as she is to others, to him she is still his little Nelly. He would not even own that he thought her altered. "I d'know," he said, a shade of anxiety blending with the old fond pride. "Fust-off, Sis didn't look jes' nat'ral, spite of all the picters she's sent us; but that was her long-tailed dress, mebbe. W'en she's a young one, Ma was all for tyin' back her ears and pinchin' her nose with a clo'espin--to make it straight or so'thin'; but I says to Ma, w'en Helen 'Lizy lef' home, 'don't ye be one mite afeard,' I says, 'but what them bright eyes'll outshine the peaked city gals.' Guess they have, sort o', eh, Sis; f'om what John's been writin'?" "I don't know, Father." "Don't ye--don't ye want t' hear 'bout the folks? Brought ye heaps o' messages. Frenchy, now--him that worked for us--druv over f'om the Merriam place to know 'f 'twas true that city folks made a catouse over ye. He'd heard the men readin' 'bout ye in the papers. "'Wa-al,' I says to Frenchy, 'Helen 'Lizy was al'ays han'some.' "'D'know 'bout zat,' says Frenchy, only he says it in his lingo, 'but she was one vair cute li'l gal.' "'Han'some as a picter,' I tol' him; 'an' cutes' little tyke y'ever see.'" "How is Mother?" asked Helen constrainedly. "Ma's lottin' on havin' ye home; wants t' hear all 'bout the good times. School done? All packed and ready for a start, ain't ye? But ye don't seem to be feeling any too good. Don't New York agree with ye, Sissy? Been studying too hard?" "She is a goot organism; New York agrees vit her," I said. "Wasn't that how poor old Darmstetter put it, Nelly? Mr. Winship, Nelly has overworked, but with your consent, she is about to let a tyrannical husband take care of her." At my heedless mention of Darmstetter, Helen's white face grew whiter. Her trembling hand strayed, seeking support. "Al'ays s'posed you'n' Sis'd be marryin' some day," said Mr. Winship, dubiously watching her, while he stroked his beard; "but seems mos's if ye'd better wait a spell, till Ma's chirked her up some. Han'some place here." His eyes examined the luxurious, disordered room.