A Woman's Reason - 1883 Author:William Dean Howells Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: one of his faint turns in the Common. He's laying down in the library now, Miss Helen." " 0, poor papa !" wailed the young lady, who knew that in spite of the... more » cook's pronoun, it could not be the policeman who was then reposing from faintness in the library. She whirled away from the mirror, and swooped through the doorway into the hall, and back into the room where her father lay. "The heat has been too much for him," she moaned, in mixed self-reproach and compassion, as she flew; and she dropped upon her knees beside him, and fondly caressed his grey head, and cooed and lamented over him, with the irreverent tenderness he liked her to use with him. " Poor old fellow," she murmured. " It's too bad ! You 're working yourself to death, and I 'm going to stay with you now, and put a stop to your being brought home by policemen. Why, you ought to be ashamed, breaking down in this way, as soon as my back is turned! Has Margaret done everything for you ? Wouldn't you like a little light?" She started briskly to her feet, flung up the long window, and raising and lowering the shade to get the right level for her father's eyes, stood silhouetted against the green space without: a grass plot between high brick walls, on one of which clambered a grape-vine, and on the other a wisteria, while a bed of bright-leafed plants gave its colour in the centre of the yard. " There !" she said, with a glance at this succinct landscape. " That's the prettiest bit of nature I 've seen since I left Boston." She came back and sat down on a low chapter{Section 4chair beside her father, who smiled fondly upon her, and took one of her hands to hold, while she pushed back his hair with the other. " Are you awfully glad to see me 1" " Awfully," said Mr. Harkness, falling in with her mood, and brigh...« less