few minutes, but he did not dare to look at her for long while he was asserting himself.
He looked at her then as she stood in the gloomy companionway, a radiant and rosy picture of healthy maidenhood. But the expression on her face was not comfortingly filial.
“Father, I must say it again. I can't help saying it. I am so unhappy. You are misjudging me so cruelly.”
“I done it because I thought it was right to do it. I haven't been tending and watching the way a father ought to tend and watch. I never seemed to be able to ketch up with you. Maybe I ain't right. Maybe I be! At any rate, I'm going to stand on this tack, in your case, for a while longer.”
“You have taken me away from my real home for this? This is no place for a girl! You are not the same as you are when you are on shore. I didn't know you could be so rough—and—wicked!”
“Hold on there, daughter! Snub cable right there! I'm an honest, God-fearing, hard-working man—paying a hundred cents on the dollar, and you know it.”
“But what did you just shout—right out where everybody could hear you?”
“That—that was only passing the compliments of the day as compared with what I can do when I get started proper. Do you think I'm going to let any snub-snooted wart-hog of a lime-duster sing—”
“Father!”
“What's a girl know about the things a father has to put up with when he goes to sea and earns money for her?”
“I am willing to work for myself. You took me right out of my good position in the millinery-store. You have made me leave all my young friends. Oh, I am so homesick!” Her self-reliance departed suddenly. She choked. She tucked her head into the hook of her arm and sobbed.
“Don't do that!” he pleaded, softening suddenly. “Please don't, Polly!”
She looked up and smiled—a pleading, wan little smile. “I didn't mean to give way to it, popsy dear. I don't intend to do anything to make you angry or sorry. I have tried to be a good girl. I am a good girl. But it breaks my heart when
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