"Yes, go, sister," said Louis, who heard the last part of Hannah's
remarks, and felt that he could not take his father by surprise. So,
leaving her husband and brother below, Maude glided noiselessly
upstairs to the low attic room, where, by an open window, gazing
sorrowfully out upon the broad harvest-fields, soon to be no longer
his, a seemingly old man sat.
And Dr. Kennedy was old, not in years, perhaps, but in appearance. His hair had bleached as white as snow, his form was bent, his face was furrowed with many a line of care,
while the tremulous motion of his head told of the palsy's blighting
power. And he sat there alone, that hazy autumnal day, shrinking
from the future and musing sadly of the past. From his armchair the
top of a willow tree was just discernible, and as he thought of the
two graves beneath that tree he moaned, "Oh, Katy, Matty, darlings.
You would pity me, I know, could you see me now so lonesome. My only
boy is over the sea--my only daughter is selfish and cold, and all
the day I'm listening in vain for someone to call me father."
"Father!" The name dropped involuntarily from the lips of Maude,
standing without the door.
But he did not hear it, and she could not say it again; for he was
not her father; but her heart was moved with sympathy, and going to
him laid her hands on his head and looked into his face.
"Maude--Matty's Maude--my Maude!" And the poor head shook with a
palsied tremor, as he wound his arms around her and asked her when
she came.
Her sudden coming unmanned him wholly, and bending over her he wept
like a little child. It would seem that her presence inspired in him
a sense of protection, a longing to detail his grievances, and with
quivering lips he said, "I am broken in body and mind. I've nothing
to call my own, nothing but a lock of Matty's hair and Louis' little
crutches--the crutches that you cushioned so that I should not hear
their sound. I was a hard-hearted monster then. I aint much better
now, but I love my child. What of Louis, Maude? Tell me of my boy,"
and over the wrinkled face of the old man broke beautifully the
father-love, giving place to the father-pride, as Maude told of
Louis' success, of the fame he won, and the money he had earned.
"Money!" Dr. Kennedy started quickly at that word, but ere he could
repeat it his ear caught a coming sound, and his eyes flashed
eagerly as, grasping the arm of Maude, he whispered, "It's music,
Maude--it's music--don't you hear it? Louis crutches on the stairs.
He comes! he comes! Matty's boy and mine! Thank Heaven, I have
something left in which that woman has no part."