Mother met me at the door with more emotion than I had ever before detected upon her thin face. Then I saw that the dear people had been at work within the house as well. Cosey corners and modern wall paper and fittings such as I had seen at the professors' houses and had described at home to auditors apparently slightly interested, had been remembered and treasured up and here attempted, to make my homecoming a festivity. The house had been transformed, and if not always in the best of taste, love shone through the blunders. "Oh, Father," I cried, "now I am surprised! How much wheat it must have cost!" "Well, I guess we can stand it," he said, grimly pleased and proud and anxious all at once. "We wanted to make it kind o' pleasant for ye, Sis; an'--an' homelike." There was something so soft and tremulous in his voice that it struck me with a great pang of contrition that I had left him for so many years, that already I was eager to go away again--to the great city where John was soon to be. I turned quickly away and went from room to room admiring the changes, but after supper, when we were all gathered about the sitting room table, Father returned to the subject most upon his mind. He had seen me with John during Commencement week, and must have understood matters. "Ready t' stay hum now, I s'pose, ain't ye?" he asked with a note in his voice of cheery assurance that perhaps he did not feel, tilting back and forth in his old-fashioned rocking chair, as I had so often seen him do, with closed eyes and open mouth, his face steeled against expression. And the slow jog, jog, jog of the chair reminded me how his silent evening vigils had worn away the rockers until they stood flat upon the floor, making every movement a clacking complaint. To-night--to-night, he is rocking just the same, in silence, in loneliness. Poor, dear Pa! "I'm glad to get home, of course," I said; "but--I wanted to speak with you. But not to-night." "Why, ye're through school." "Yes, but I--I wish I could go on studying; if I may." The words tripped over each other in my embarrassment. The jog, jog of the chair paused suddenly, leaving for a moment only the ticking of the clock to break the silence. "Not goin' to put up 'ith us an' stay right alon', eh?" he asked; and rocked twice, then stopped again, in suspense for the answer. "Why, Father," I stammered, "of course I don't want to do anything unless you're willing, but I had thought I'd like--I did want to go and study in the city--I think--or somewhere." "Dear me! Dear me!" he mused, his voice very low and even; "an' you just through the University; 'way up to the top, too. Can't ye--seems as if ye better stop alon' of us an' study home, same's you used to? Mebbe--mebbe 'twon't be good for ye, studyin' so much."