WHILE THERE IS TIME

New Zealand Tablet, 27 August 1908, Page 37

WHILE THERE IS TIME

' There's father, girls.' ' 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 fatherbegan to feel for his latch-key. Margaret had stirred up the coal in the grate, coaxing it into a cheery blaze by the time father was kissed and helped off with his coat and hat. 'Well, well, this is good.' He came in the door rubbing ■ his hands, his face reflecting the brightness of the fire. ' Miss Emily,' he said, turning with cordial 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 ia me, I am sure I should feel that I couldn't get 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 ! 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. ' Oh, yes, yes,' father's face beamed as he took it; 4 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 at all in it except that in these years you have been .away we have ,vborh been getting older, and, 1 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 the 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 butter, shoes and stockings — why, I thought myself a lucky and a wise fellow in having steered clear of such burdens. But of 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-Asaid. father*. with>.a glance v of sympathy, at his brother, ' it is you Avha,are making the, mistake in thinking .it ever was . a burdens The '" paying up,. as you call it, has kept along with it-. all thel time.' ■ r , ' '/ I'dare say^' agceed-jthe other- "-..'-• Janets 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 didn't take him- so much in earnest until lately.' " ---' - '/"'..' 'I thinlc you are right", Emily, shame be to us that it is so. Well '—after a little hesitation—- might .as well tell you a bit of sad experience that came before me and set me to doing some thinkings 1 "was making a visit to Helen Ward whr-n her father was brought home after an attack of apoplexy.' ' I remember;-,' - '-"■>- '.Hetwas, still, living, >ut scion -afterward. . I came away at once, but not before seeing- arid hearing enough to open - -my eyes- to something to which I had been blind before. It took me a good while to get over the remembrance of the misery -of those poor girls. ' He's been working for us all these years,* was their cry. ' Thinking and striving for us, and we have taken it as a mere matter of course; never tried to make him happy, or show how we do love hYm., .Oh, if only we may have a chance yet!"" But they never had,', poor things!- I came ! home with a heart full of thankfulness . that the chance was still left to me. ' ' c - _- ' And to me,' said Emily. ' I will take the lesson, too. I don't want to lay up a heartache to last all my life, with the thought of lost opportunity.' - -