Dominie Dean by Ellis Parker Butler

ON those days when 'Thusia was able to be downstairs Alice set a small dinner table in the sitting room so that she might enjoy the company of her husband and children. When David entered the sitting room Lucille had departed, and Roger was there, waiting for his belated dinner. Luckily his labors were not of sufficient importance to require prompt hours -- his dinner hour sometimes lasted the best half of the afternoon. As David entered the room Alice ran to him, and threw her arms around him; he could do no less than embrace her, for anything else would have been like a slap in the face. He kissed her, but his face was grave.

"Father! Mother told you? " Alice said, still holding him. "Aren't you surprised! Why," she pouted, "you don't look a bit happy! But I know why -- you don't know Lanny. They don't know him, do they, pop?"