broader and bigger in spirit he is than Aunt Sadi.
He had not yet showed the letter to Alice, but one day, when he had been talking about his childhood, he felt moved to do so. Drawing it from the pocket where he always carried it, he handed it to his wife, with a few words of explanation.
Do not let it hurt you, he said. She is an old woman, and what she says cannot matter after all. I have meant a good deal to her, probably, in her loneliness, and she thinks she is losing me. But she is wrong about my father. He has been very good to me.
He was not surprised to observe that she flushed as she read the letter. Handing it back to him, she stared at him in a peculiarly searching manner. There was an expression around her eyes that he had never noticed there before.
The letter does not hurt me, she said at last, only . . .
Only what?
Regarding him more intently still, she paused for a moment. Then, turning her head so that their eyes no longer met, she replied: Your father may have had some purpose in view, Harold, but he meant it for your good, I feel sure.
And now that I have done what he didn't want me to do he has forgiven me?
Ye-es, she replied, rather hesitantly, although he was not conscious of her lack of enthusiasm. Quite
