It's altogether too bad." Garratt Skinner breakfasted with an eye on the clock, and as soon as the hands pointed to five minutes to nine, he rose from the table.
"I must be off--business, my dear." He came round the table to her and gently laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"It makes a great difference, Sylvia, to have a daughter, fresh and young and pretty, sitting opposite to me at the breakfast table--a very great difference.

I shall cut work early to-day on account of it; I'll come home and fetch you, and we'll go out and lunch somewhere together." He spoke with every sign of genuine feeling; and Sylvia, looking up into his face, was moved by what he said.

He smiled down at her, with her own winning smile; he looked her in the face with her own frankness, her own good humor.
"I have been a lonely man for a good many years, Sylvia," he said, "too lonely.

I am glad the years have come to an end"; and this time he did what yesterday night he had checked himself from doing.