"
"Please don't talk like that," Alice said, quickly. "I'm old
enough to realize that papa may need pressure of all sorts; I
only think it makes him more obstinate to get him cross. You
probably do understand him better, but that's one thing I've
found out and you haven't. There!" She gave her mother a
friendly tap on the shoulder and went to the door. "I'll hop in
and say hello to him now."
As she went, she continued the fastening of her blouse, and
appeared in her father's room with one hand still thus engaged,
but she patted his forehead with the other.
"Poor old papa-daddy!" she said, gaily. "Every time he's better
somebody talks him into getting so mad he has a relapse. It's a
shame!"
Her father's eyes, beneath their melancholy brows, looked up at
her wistfully. "I suppose you heard your mother going for me,"
he said.
"I heard you going for her, too!" Alice laughed. "What was it
all about?"
"Oh, the same danged old story!"
"You mean she wants you to try something new when you get well?"
Alice asked, with cheerful innocence. "So we could all have a
lot more money?"
At this his sorrowful forehead was more sorrowful than ever. The
deep horizontal lines moved upward to a pattern of suffering so
familiar to his daughter that it meant nothing to her; but he
spoke quietly.
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