Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/67

Rh the news had been in one of those letters he had returned unopened!

"My God!" he gasped. "What a fool I have been!"

His daughters usually made a pretext of agreeing with him to keep the barbed arrows of his wit from being sent their way, but when the arbitrary old man declared himself a fool they felt perhaps it would be better to combat his statement.

"Not at all, Father!" they chorused.

"A fool, I say! All kinds of a fool! Don't contradict me! I know a fool when I see one. Get the bay mare hitched to my buggy. I'll go to meet this person myself. Hurry! Hurry!"

"There's someone coming down the road now, Father," said Evelyn. "Look! There are two persons—one a man and the other either a child or an old woman. Can you see them?"

"Certainly! My eyesight is as good as yours. Never mind my buggy yet a while, Spot. I'll await our guests here on the porch."