"And haven't you any idea what it could be?" asked the doctor.
"I've been thinking about it ever since Dad went home," said Helen, "and I don't know of a single thing that would worry him that much."
"What we'd like to have you do," went on Helen, "is to drop in after supper. Make it look like a little social visit and it will give you a good excuse to give Dad the once over. We'll be ever so much relieved if you will."
"Of course I will," the doctor assured them. "You're probably worrying about some little thing and the more you think about it, the larger it grows. Possibly a little touch of stomach trouble. What have you been trying to cook, lately?" he asked Helen.
"Couldn't be my cooking," she replied. "I haven't done any for a week and you know that Mother's good cooking would never make anyone ill."
"I'll come over about seven-thirty," promised Doctor Stevens, "and don't you two worry yourselves over this. Your father will be all right in a day or two."
Helen and Tom thanked Doctor Stevens and continued on their way home. They went back past the postoffice and the _Herald_ and down toward the lake, whose waters reflected the rays of the setting sun in varied hues.
A block from the lake shore they turned to their right into a tree-shaded street and climbed a gentle hill. Their home stood on a knoll overlooking the lake. It was an old-fashioned house that had started out as a three room cottage. Additions had been made until it rambled away in several directions. It boasted no definite style of architecture, but had a hominess that few houses possess. From the long, open front porch, there was an unobstructed view down the lake, which stretched away in the distance, its far reaches hidden in the coming twilight. A speed boat, being loaded with the afternoon mail for the summer resorts down the lake, was sputtering at the big pier at the foot of main street. A bundle of _Heralds_ was placed on the boat and then it whisked away down the lake, a curving streak of white marking its passage.
Helen found her mother in the kitchen preparing their evening meal.
Mrs. Blair, at forty-five, was a handsome woman. Her hair had decided touches of gray but her face still held the peachbloom of youth and she looked more like an older sister than a mother. She had been a teacher in the high school at Rolfe when Hugh Blair had come to edit the country paper. The teacher and the editor had fallen in love and she had given up teaching and married him.