“Doesn’t father go to the theatre with them?” asked Maria.

“No, he never goes.  I don’t know whether they ask him or not.  If they do, he doesn’t go.  I guess he would rather stay at home.  Then I don’t believe papa would want to leave me alone until the late train, for often the cook and Irene go out in the evening.”

Maria looked anxiously at her little sister, who was sitting as close to her as she could get in the divan before the fire.  “Does papa look well?” she asked.

“Why, yes, I guess so.  He looks just the way he always has.  I haven’t heard him say he wasn’t well, nor mamma, and he hasn’t had the doctor, and I haven’t seen him take any medicine.  I guess he’s well.”

Maria looked at the clock, a fine French affair, which had been one of Ida’s wedding gifts, standing swinging its pendulum on the shelf between a Tiffany vase and a bronze.  “Father must be home soon now, if he comes on that five-clock train,” she said.

“Yes, I guess he will.”

In fact, it was a very few minutes before a carriage stopped in front of the house and Evelyn called out:  “There he is!  Papa has come!”

Maria did not dare look out of the window.  She arose with trembling knees and went out into the hall as the front door opened.  She saw at the first glance that her father had changed—­that he did not look well.  And yet it was difficult to say why he did not look well.  He had not lost flesh, at least not perceptibly; he was not very pale, but on his face was the expression of one who is looking his last at the things of this world.  The expression was at once stern and sad and patient.  When he saw Maria, however, the look disappeared for the time.  His face, which had not yet lost its boyish outlines, fairly quivered between smiles and tears.  He caught Maria in his arms.

“Father’s blessed child!” he whispered in her ear.

“Oh, father,” half sobbed Maria, “why didn’t you send for me before?  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hush, darling!” Harry said, with a glance at Evelyn, who stood looking on with a puzzled, troubled expression on her little face.  Harry took off his overcoat, and they all went into the parlor.  “That fire looks good,” said Harry, drawing close to it.

“I got Maria to ask Irene to make it,” Evelyn said, in her childish voice.

“That was a good little girl,” said Harry.  He sat down on the divan, with a daughter on each side of him.  Maria nestled close to her father.  With an effort she kept her quivering face straight.  She dared not look in his face again.  A knell seemed ringing in her ears from her own conviction, a voice of her inner consciousness, which kept reiterating, “Father is going to die, father is going to die.”  Maria knew little of illness, but she felt that she could not mistake that expression.  But her father talked quite gayly, asking her about her school and Aunt Maria and Uncle Henry and his wife.  Maria replied mechanically.  Finally she mustered courage to say: