He did not seem to notice it.
"Wa'n't lookin' for me yit-a-while, was ye?" he asked. "Kind o' thought
I'd s'prise ye. Did s'prise the man down in the hall. Didn't want to let
me in till I told him who I was. Little gal in the entry says ye're
movin'; ye do look all tore up, for a fac'."
Mr. Winship has grown old within the year. His hair has whitened and his
bushy eyebrows; but the grip of his hand, the sound of his homely speech,
seemed to wake me from some ugly dream. Here we were together again in the
wholesome daylight, Father Winship, little Helen 'Lizy and the
Schoolmaster, and all must yet be well.
Mr. Winship sighed with deep content as he sank into a chair, his eyes
scarcely leaving Helen. He owned himself beat out and glad of a dish of
tea; but when Clesta had served him in her scuttling crab fashion, he
would stop in the middle of a sentence, with saucer half lifted, to gaze
with perplexed, wistful tenderness at his stately daughter.
She is the child of his old age; I think he must be long past sixty, and
fast growing feeble. The instinct of father love has grown in him so
refined that he sees the soul and not the envelope.
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