Did Gloria want to leave all this? How peaceful and sweet it seemed now! But no idle dreamer was Gloria. With the first temptation to feel sorry for herself she called up the picture of her dad, Edward Doane, working at a bookkeeper’s desk and dreaming of the great adventure. The young man made serious through sudden hardship—the loss of a lovely wife and the care of a darling daughter. This last would not have meant hardship, if only things had been different in Barbend. But here he had come in quest of the hoped-for health of an ailing wife. Here he had set up his humble home, and here he had still remained for Gloria’s sake.
The girl and her dad were inseparable when he could be at home. He taught her more than she had learned from books, and the best of his gifts was a determination to overcome obstacles. When other girls of her age were suffering from the well meant shelter and warning of the home circle, Gloria was absorbing the lessons of courage and determination. And now she was soon to see results. Her dad was going to have _his_ chance. He was to be free from the care of a rather fractious daughter; he was to be unchained from the cottage that always needed a shingle or a daub of paint; he was to go on the trip that would pay its own way and take care of the explorer, while Gloria would be safely imprisoned in a boarding school. She thought of it that way. No love of culture nor hope of new adventure, even such as she had so long and so often read about, presented to her anything like a glowing picture of boarding school life. Kathy Bruen had done something to color up the prospect, but then there was Millie, and Tom, and even her faithful housekeeper and care-taker, Jane Morgan. Jane loved her and she was so faithful! Ever since Gloria could remember it had been Jane.
Jane’s gray head made a second post at the gate just now. Gloria hurried on to answer the unspoken call to supper. Her father would not be home; he only came up the river twice a week in busy season and this was not his night.
“There’s a letter for you, dear,” said Jane, with a smile that betrayed the possibility of good news.
“Postmark’s Sandford, so I guess it must be,” said Jane, winding an arm around Gloria’s waist as they both moved to the door.