  The blinding snowstorm which had started the night before, as Muriel and Captain Barney had returned from Windy Island, increased in fury during the night and even Muriel did not care to battle through the elements the next day to visit the cabins on the dunes. She indeed was curious to see the address to which the letter was to be sent and she looked eagerly out at the storm, wondering how long it would last. Miss Gordon was so interested in her book that she did not notice Muriel’s suppressed excitement. The girl could think of nothing but the letter and its possible reception by the Mr. Storm, who, of course, was her father. What if this unknown father might prove to be someone for whom she could not care? But she put that thought away from her. Of course she would dearly love the man whom her girl-mother had loved and trusted. Then she wondered how far the letter would have to travel to reach him and how long a time would elapse before she would have a reply. Would that reply bid her go to another part of America to live? It was midmorning when the girl’s revery was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Skipping to the doctor’s study, she lifted the receiver and upon hearing the voice at the other end her face brightened. “Oh, Uncle Lem, I’m so glad you were able to get away. Yes, I’ll send Jabez right down to the station. You want Brazilla to make a double quantity of clam chowder. Why, Uncle Lem, how hungry you must be. All right, I’ll tell her. Good-bye.” “Oh, isn’t that the jolliest!” Muriel beamed at Miss Gordon, whose book had been dropped to her lap when she learned that Doctor Winslow was in town. Into the kitchen the girl skipped when Jabez had been notified. “What can I do to help?” Rilla asked, and Brazilla replied: “Well, maybe you’d better fetch out the best cloth and set the table extra fine. I reckon another log on the hearth would make the dinin’-room more cheerful like. Then thar’s a geranium on the south window sill that blossomed this morning. You might put that in the middle.” “Put it in the middle of the fire?” the girl asked merrily. Then she whirled about and kissed the astonished housekeeper on the forehead. “Oh, Brazilla,” she exclaimed, “please don’t mind my nonsense. I’m so excited about something that I can’t tell yet that I don’t know what I am about.” “Wall, I should say, Rilly, that suthin’ onusual must a-gone to yer head. You don’t act at all natural, an’ yer cheeks are so red.” Then, anxiously, the good woman added: “You don’t feel feverish, do you?” “No, Brazilla. Honest Injun, I’m all right. Now I’ll get busy.” The table was all set, and most attractive it looked when the joyous ringing of sleighbells was heard in the drive. Muriel waited until she heard a stamping of feet on the front porch, then she threw open the door and uttered a cry of joy, for with the good doctor were her two best friends. “Oh, Joy! Faith! What a wonderful surprise!” In spite of their snowy garments she hugged them both, then whirling and shaking a finger at the doctor, she accused: “Now I know why you pretended to be so ravenously hungry and ordered a double portion of clam chowder.” “Guilty!” The doctor kissed his glowing-eyed ward; then, leaving the girls with their hostess, he went into the living-room in search of Miss Gordon. He found her standing by the fireplace. “Helen,” he said impulsively as he advanced toward her, “you can’t know what it means to me to find you waiting to welcome me by my own hearth-side which for so many years has been deserted and lonely; so lonely, Helen, since mother left.” Just why there were tears in the sweet grey eyes that were lifted to him Miss Gordon could not have told, for the realization had come to them both that this was truly a moment for rejoicing; but all that the little woman said was, “I’ve been lonely, too, Lemuel.” Just at that moment into the room danced Muriel, leading the two laughing girls, whose heavy wraps had been removed. The older woman turned to greet them and the physician went to his own room to prepare for his evening meal. “Isn’t this just like a party?” Rilla exclaimed half an hour later when they were seated about the long table. “Oh, girls, I had been hoping that you would come for a week-end, as you had promised, but how did you happen to be with Uncle Lem?” “We met Doctor Winslow in the station at New York and when we told him that we were coming to stay at the inn in Tunkett for a few days he declared that we must be your guests in his home, and, of course, we were only too glad to accept.” Many times during the evening repast the physician’s eyes wandered to the face of his ward. Her cheeks were glowing, almost feverishly, and the light in her eyes was unnatural and her excited chatter, he was sure, was not entirely because of the unexpected arrival of her friends. When they were leaving the table, he drew her aside, saying, “Muriel, I would like to see you in my study.” The girl excused herself and accompanied him. As soon as the door was closed, the physician turned and placed his cool hand on her cheeks and brow. He said: “Little girl, are you ill or has something happened that is troubling you?” To his great surprise Muriel threw her arms about his neck and began to sob. “No, Uncle Lem, nothing troubles me; that is, it doesn’t yet. Uncle Barney has written a letter to my own father to tell him about me, and, oh, Uncle Lem, what if he should not care for me? Every night since I was little I’ve prayed for that dear father who never came for me, and I’ve prayed God to send him to me some time because my girl-mother so loved him; but now that at last he is to know about me I am so afraid that he will not want me.” This, then, had been the real cause of her feverish excitement. The physician drew Muriel down beside him upon a couch and asked her to tell all that had happened. He had never known about the address in the little iron box, for although he had been a close friend of Ezra Bassett’s in their boyhood, the physician had been away much of the time in later years. “Dear,” he said comfortingly, “do not be fearful. The little that I have heard of your artist father leads me to believe that, although evidently poor, he was possessed of high ideals and was very talented. I cannot believe that he has purposely neglected you all of these years. Now dry your tears and go back to your friends with a happy heart and be sure that the tender love you have given your father is now to be returned to you.” When the girl had left him, the physician bent his head on his hands. And so he was to lose Muriel. One by one those who were dear to him had left him and in his old age he was to be alone, for it would be presumptuous on his part to ask so lovely a woman as Miss Gordon to share the little he had to offer. But at that moment he recalled the tears in the grey eyes and the break in the voice that had said, “I, too, have been lonely.” Rising, he thought, “I will go to Helen and ask her if she cares to share my home.” |
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