TELLING HER SO | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Aug 30, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 35.

TELLING HER SO.

"THERE's nothing wrong with Arthur, I hope," said Mr. Lobdell to his daughter, in whose hands were a number of closely-written sheets of foreign note-paper. Altho Mr. Lobdell sat on the other side of the hearth, he noticed that several tears had fallen on the letter Mrs. Benton was reading. "I've never been quite sure, Ellen, that you did the right thing when you let the boy go to Paris to study. It's easy for a young fellow like him to get weaned from home. We ought to have kept him near us. Now, if he's in any trouble—"

"He isn't, father. He's very well, and busy with his work, and he has written me such a dear letter for my birthday that—well, it made his foolish mother cry a little. Read it, father." Mrs. Benton gave him the letter, and then took from the mantel a photograph of a bright, boyish face, whose fearless, honest eyes seemed to answer her tender gaze.

Mr. Lobdell glanced at the first page hastily. The pleasures of correspondence had never especially appealed to him, and he was rather scornful of long letters. In a moment he adjusted his glasses more securely, and began to read slowly. When at last he came to the end, he folded the sheets carefully and replaced them in the envelope, sighing as he did so.

"It's a beautiful letter, Ellen, beautiful, strong and manly, too," he said, in reply to his daughter's expectant look, but it makes me sad."

"Why, father? I thought it would make you glad, not sad."

"It does make me glad for you and him, but it takes me back to my own boyhood. Arthur says that the thought of you is his inspiration, his safeguard; that he carries your image in his heart, and with your picture in his pocket, he can not go to any place where he couldn't take you. It was just so with my mother. The thought of her goodness kept me out of many a scrape, and I loved her just as Arthur loves you, but I never told her so. What wouldn't I give, Ellen, to have written her a letter like this one!"

Mrs. Benton knelt by her father's side and took his hand.

"Grandmother always understood," she said. "She knew how you loved her."

"Yes, perhaps, but what a comfort and a pleasure it would be to me to have told her as your boy, God bless him! has told you."—Youth's Companion.