Читать книгу At the Sign of the Fox. A Romance онлайн

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Brooke alone had been able to break through this crust of self-sufficiency that he had used as a barrier against the world in his early days of struggle, until it now shut him off from the luxury of everything natural, uncalculated, and spontaneous. Brooke had enough of the enthusiasm of youth not to be chilled by it. She looked forward hopefully to the promised time when he should take a long holiday, and be with them, and, as she explained it, only “think foolishness.” He had never refused her anything that she asked of him, not that her wishes had ever been extravagant. Many a time, as some clever whim of hers brought a rare smile to his keen, thin face, intelligent and alive, if somewhat harshly fined and worn, he almost clinched the hand that he always kept in his left pocket in despair that this child was not the boy who should keep his name alive, instead of that other who now bore it. But in the fact that Brooke was a daughter lay all the charm, for there is no other born relationship so subtle, so potent of good for each, as that between father and daughter.