WHILE THERE

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 18, 7 May 1908, Page 37

WHILE THERE

' There's father, girls.' 1 Yes, and he looks tired.' * ' We'll soon get him out of that. Poke up the fire Marg.' • . '

Hester ran . to the door, and it, was open before her father began to feel for his latchkey. Margaret had stirred up the coal in the grate, coaxing it into a cheery blaze by the time father was kissed a nd helped off with his coat and hat.

• Well, well, tliis is good.' He came in the door rubbing his hands, his face reflecting the brightness of the fire. 'Miss Emily,' he said, turning with a cox-dial handshake to a young girl who had come in from a neighbor's ; ' I sometimes say that four girls are just enough— exactly fitted into my needs ; but if you belonged to me, I am sure I should feel that I couldn't got along with less than five. ' But I shouldn't want to steal you away from your father.' 'There comes Uncle George,' said Janet. She handed father the slippers she had been holding to warm and went to open the door for him. ' Dear me ! Dear me ! Now, if this isn't homelike I You would realise it, Allen, if you were a desolate old bachelor like me. Always being waited on. Happy man,' he said with a laugh., as a younger girl came carefully carrying a glass of hot water. 1 Oh, yes, yes,' father's face beamed as he took it , ' it's all nonsense, you know, the rankest kind of nonsense. But these silly girls and their mother have lately built up a theory about me that I am not quite as strong as I used to be, and need a most ridiculous amount of coddling. Nothing a'fc all in it except that in these years you have been away we have'both been getting older, and '—with a laugh and a pat on the head of the daughter who chanced to be nearest him—' I must say I rather like it.' ' No wonder. _ It is better than the cold comfort of a boarding-house,' said the visitor, looking around on the bright room and Xhe> bright faces with a half sigh. • I -declare, Allen, I used- to feel sorry for you in the old times, when I thought you had such a tug of it with family cares. Bread and uutter, shoes and stockings—why, I thought myself a lucky and wise fellow in having steered clear of such burdens. But in late years I seem to have awakened to a sort of a fear that I have made a mistake. You are getting paid up for it now.'

' But,' said father, with a glance of sympathy a t his brother, • it is you who are making the mistake in thinking; it ever was a burden. TKe " paying up," as you call it, has kept along with it all the ifime.' 1 I dare say,' agreed the other. * Janet, '^. said Emily, as the two friends were seated together a little later, "hasn't it been rather a new thing with you, this waiting on your father, petting him up and taking such' good care of him ? Seems to me you dfdn't .take him' so much in earnest until lately.'

1 I think you are right, Emily ; shame be to us that it Is so. Well '—after a Kttle hesitation—' I might as well tell you a bit of sad experience that came before me and set me to doing some thinking. I was making a visit to Helen Ward, when, her father was brought home after an attack of apoplexy,' ' I remember. 1

He was still living, but died soon afterward. I cam© away at once, but not before seeing a nd hearing: enough to open my eyes -bo something to which I had been blind before it t o ak me a good while to get aver the misery of those poor girls. '.' He's been workine for us all these years," was their cry, " ThinMnl' and striving for us, and we have taken it as a mere matter of course ; never tried to make him happy 'or " show bow we do love him. Oh, if only we may have a .chance yet ! " But they neveiThad, poor things » I came home with a heart full of thankfulness that the chance was still left to meT ••Anid to me,' said Emily! .-"I^ill take the lesson, too. I dont want to lay up a heartache to last all my life with the thought of lost opportunity '—