Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/171

 them on the stone step and to hear how their work was faring. When questioned about her father she was still able to answer cheerfully, although it was plain that it cost some effort to do so.

"The doctor says that he may be ill a long time," she said at last. "He had been working hard, too hard for any one who is so old, and for the last few months, when he came near to the end of his experiments, he had been under the pressure of great excitement. And I think, though he would never say so, that sometimes the very weariness and suspense made him wonder if the invention was to be a success. I know that he had written to one of his scientific friends, the chief mechanical engineer for a great construction company, to come and inspect the new machine and that he was more disappointed than he could quite hide, that there had been no answer. He used to ask me several times a day about the letters. So when Donald came—"

The mention of letters had brought to Betsey such a sudden recollection that she interrupted.

"There were some letters that night; your cousin brought them, and they were never opened. Perhaps one of them is what your father hoped for. I think they are still lying on the table in his shop."

She sped away to fetch them with great eagerness and came back with the handful of correspondence, much of it evidently mere advertisements, but with