The Wharf by the Docks | Page 4

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 is proud--very proud."
"But if he could behave like that," replied the doctor, quickly, "if he could throw over such a nice girl as you for no reason worth speaking of, I should call him a nasty-tempered fellow, whom you ought to be glad to be rid of."
"Ah, but you would be wrong," retorted Doreen, with a little flush in her face. "It is quite true that he has neglected me a little lately, written short letters, and not been down to see me so often. But I am sure there was some better