Only," he added, with a sigh, "I'm getting too old."
"Yes, dad; I'm afraid you are," agreed Susie. "You wouldn't really enjoy
it."
"'My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!'"
quoted Nell, in a solemn voice.
"Don't you be too sure!" retorted her father, threateningly, wheeling
around upon her. "There's no telling what I may be driven to, if I'm
kept imprisoned here much longer! 'Though I look old,'--"
"'Yet I am strong and lusty,'" finished Sue. "Of course you are, dad,
and you don't look old, either. Why," gazing up at him critically, "you
don't look a day over forty!"
"Don't try to bamboozle your Pa, Susie," laughed Rushford. "I can see
through you! You'll be trying to make me believe next that you want a
stepmother."
"I would if it would make you any happier, dad."
Her father gazed down for an instant into her pseudo-serious face, then
caught her in his arms and squeezed her.
"What're you up to?" he demanded. "Trying to make a fool of your old
dad? Why, Susie, own up,--you'd scratch out the eyes of the best woman
in the world if she dared to look twice at me!"
"Of course I would!" admitted Susie, instantly. "You know as well as I
do, dad, that even the best woman in the world isn't good enough for
you.
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