Athalie

To him, here, came his daughters in their soiled and rusty black

dresses, just out of school, and always stopping on impulse of

sympathy to salute him with, "Hello, papa!" and with the touch of

fresh, warm lips on his colourless cheek.

Sometimes they lingered to chatter around him, or bring out pie and

cake to eat in his company. But very soon his gaze became remote, and

the children understood that they were at liberty to go, which they

did, dancing happily away into the outer sunshine, on pleasure

bent--the matchless pleasures of the very young whose poverty has not

as yet disturbed them.

As the summer passed the sunlight grew greyer to Peter Greensleeve.

Also, more often, he mixed his words and made nonsense of what he

said.

The pain in his chest and arms which for a year had caused him

discomfort, bothered him at night, now. He said nothing about it.

That summer Doris had taken a course in stenography and typewriting,

going every day to Brooklyn by train and returning before sunset.

When school began she asked to be allowed to continue. Catharine, too,

desired to learn. And if their father understood very clearly what

they wanted, it is uncertain. Anyway he offered no objections.

That winter he saw his son very seldom. Perhaps the boy was busy. Once

or twice he came to ask his father for money, but there was none to

give him,--very little for anybody--and Doris and Catharine required

that.

Some little money was taken in at the Hotel Greensleeve; commercial

men were rather numerous that winter: so were duck-hunters. Athalie

often saw them stamping around in the bar, the lamplight glistening on

their oil-skins and gun-barrels, and touching the silken plumage of

dead ducks--great strings of them lying on the bar or on the floor.

Once when she came home from school earlier than usual, she went into

the kitchen and found a hot peach turnover awaiting her, constructed

for her by the slovenly cook, and kept hot by the still more slovenly

maid-of-all-work--the only servants at the Hotel Greensleeve.

Sauntering back through the house, eating her turnover, she noticed

Mr. Ledlie reading his newspaper in the office and her father

apparently asleep on a chair before the stove.

There were half a dozen guests at the inn, duck-hunters from New York,

but they were evidently still out with their bay-men.

Nibbling her pastry Athalie loitered along the hall and deposited her

strapped books on a chair under the noisy wall-clock. Then, at hazard,

she wandered into the bar. It was growing dusky; nobody had lighted

the ceiling lamp.