The Wharf by the Docks | Page 4

obstinate himself.
Mr. Wedmore crossed the long room to the door, and opened it sharply.
The hall was full of people and of great bales of goods, which were
piled upon the center-table and heaped up all around it.
"Doreen!" he called, sharply.
Out of the crowd there rushed a girl--such a girl! One of those radiant
creatures who explain the cult of womanhood; who make it difficult
even for sober-minded, middle-aged men and matrons to realize that
this is nothing but flesh and blood like themselves; one of those
beautiful creatures who claim worship as a right and who repay it with

kindness and brightness and sweetness and laughter.
No house was ever dull that held Doreen Wedmore.
She was a tall girl, brown-haired, brown-eyed, made to laugh and to
live in the sunshine. Nobody could resist her, and nobody ever tried to.
She sprang across the hall to her father and whirled him back into the
dining-room, and put her back against it.
"Dudley's come!" said she. "He's in the hall--among the blankets!"
"Blankets!"
"Yes." She was crossing the room by this time to the doctor, whom she
had quickly perceived, and was holding out her hand to him. "You must
know, doctor, that we are up to our eyes in blankets just now, and in
bundles of red flannel, and in soup and coals. Papa has been reading up
Christmas in the country in the olden time, and he finds that to be
correct you must deluge the neighborhood with those articles. They are
not at all what the people want, as far as I can make out. But that
doesn't matter. It pleases papa to demoralize the neighborhood; so we're
doing it. And mamma helps him. She dates from the prehistoric period
when a wife really swore to obey her husband; so she does it through
thick and thin. Of course, she knows better all the time. She could
always set papa right if she chose. Whatever happens, papa must be
obeyed. So when he wants to run his dear old head into a noose, she
dutifully holds it open for him, when all the time she knows how
uncomfortable he'll be till he gets out."
"You're a saucy puss, Miss!" cried her father, trying to frown, but
betraying his delight in his daughter's merry tongue by the twinkle in
his eyes.
"And that's the right sort of woman for a wife," said the old doctor,
enthusiastically. "I must say I think it's a bad sign when young girls
think they can improve upon their own mothers."

"She doesn't mean half she says," said her father, indulgently.
"Oh, yes, she does," retorted Doreen. "And she wants to know, please,
what it is you have to say to Dudley."
The doctor rose from his chair, and Mr. Wedmore frowned.
"And it's no use putting me off by telling me not to ask questions. I'm
not mamma, you know."
"I intend to ask him--something about you."
It was the girl's turn to frown now.
"Please don't, papa," said she, in a lower voice. "I know you're going to
worry him, and to put your hands behind your back and ask him
conundrums, and to make all sorts of mischief, under the impression
that you are putting things right. And if you only just wouldn't,
everything would soon be as right as possible. While if you persist--"
But Mr. Wedmore interrupted her, not harshly, as he would have done
anybody else, but with decision.
"You must trust me to know best, my dear. It is better for you both that
we should come to some understanding. Haselden, you'll excuse me for
half an hour, won't you? And you, Doreen," and he turned again to his
daughter, "stay with the doctor here, and try to talk sense till I come
back again."
And Mr. Wedmore went quickly out of the room, without giving the
girl a chance of saying anything more.

CHAPTER II.
MAX MAKES A DISCOVERY.
Doreen's bright face lost a little of its color and much of its gayety as

her father disappeared. The doctor felt sorry for her.
"Come, come; cheer up, my dear," he said. "If he loves you honestly,
and I don't know how he can fail to do so, a few words with your father
will put matters all right. There is nothing to look so sad about, I think."
But Doreen gave him one earnest, questioning look, and then her
eyelids fell again.
"You don't know," she said, in a low voice. "Papa doesn't understand
Dudley; but I think I do. He is very sensitive and rather reserved about
himself. If papa interferes now, he will offend him, and Dudley may
very likely go off at once, and perhaps never come near me again. He