“Good God, I’ve done hard things in my life, but I can’t do this!  Lydia, you go home and tell your father I’ll renew that note, but he’s got to pay the interest and ten per cent. of the principal, every year till he’s paid it up.  Here, I’ll write it down.  And tell him that I’m not doing it for him or for that skunk of a Levine, but I’m doing it for you.  Here, I’ll write that down, too.”

He folded the bit of paper and put it in an envelope.  “Come here,” he said.  He pinned the note into the pocket of her blouse.  “Understand, Lydia,” he said in a low voice, tilting her head up so that he looked down into her eyes, “I’m buying your friendship with this.  You go on living with your father and taking care of him, but I’m buying your friendship for me and Margery—­for good and all.”  He looked out of the window with a curious air of abstraction.  Then, “Button your coat and run along.”

“I haven’t thanked you,” exclaimed Lydia, “I can’t thank you.  Oh, but thank you, Mr. Marshall—­I—­I—­” she began to tremble violently.

“Stop!” roared Marshall.  “And you tell your father to look out for your nerves.  Now skip.”  And Lydia’s trembling stopped and she skipped.

She did not tell Lizzie of her errand and that faithful soul was too glad to see her eat her dinner to think to ask her why she had skated so long.  Kent came out in the afternoon and the two fished through the ice until sunset, when they came in with a string of fish sufficiently long to divide and make a meal for the Dudleys and the Moultons.  At dusk, Kent departed with his fish and “Men of Iron,” loaned by Lydia as a special favor, under his arm.

Old Lizzie cleaned the fish and Lydia fried them, with the daintiness and skill that seemed to have been born in her.  She laid an envelope at her father’s plate and when he sat down, silent and abstracted, without heeding the fish, she shook her head at Lizzie who was about to protest.

“Where’d this come from?” he asked, absentmindedly opening the envelope.  Then, “For God’s sake!  Lydia—­where? how?”

“It was like this,” said Lydia.  “Set the fish back to warm, while I explain, Lizzie.  It was like this—­” and she gave a full history of her morning’s visit, to her two speechless listeners.  “And I ran all the way to the lake and I skated like the wind, and I never told Lizzie a word, though I nearly busted!”

Amos looked from Lydia to Lizzie, from Lizzie to Lydia.

“Lydia—­my little daughter—­” he faltered.

The tears flew to Lydia’s eyes and she spoke hastily, “Lizzie, show him the fish we caught!”

Amos smiled while he shook his head.  “I won’t forget it, Lydia.  In spite of little Patience’s going, you’ve taken ten years off me this night.  What do you suppose John Levine will say?”

“He’ll say,” replied Lydia, taking her serving of fish, “’If you were ten years older, Lydia, and I were ten years younger,’ and I’ll say—­’then we’d travel.’”