Octavia Gentry, coming to the back door of the Cleaverage home, found Lance sitting on a little platform there, rubbing his feet with snow, while Sylvane crouched on the steps, getting off his own shoes.
"I thought I'd be on the safe side," Lance said in an unshaken voice. "They might be frost-bit and then they might not. No need 243 to go to the fire with 'em till I can get some feeling in 'em. How"—and now the tones faltered a little—"how is she?"
Octavia's horrified eyes went from the feet his busy hands were chafing with snow, to his lean, brown, young face, where the skin seemed to cling to the bone, and the eyes were quite too large.
"She's doin' well," choked the mother. "The doctor's been gone five hours past. It's a boy, honey. They're both asleep now. Oh, my poor Lance—my poor Lance!"
A sudden glow shone in the hazel eyes. Lance turned and smiled at her so that the tears ran over her face. He set down the lump of snow he had just taken up in his hand, and rising began to stamp softly.
"It's all right, mother," he said, in a tone that was almost gay. "I'm 'feared Sylvane's worse off."
But it appeared on inquiry that Sylvane's shoes had proved almost water tight, and that a brief run in the snow was all he wanted to send him in the house tingling with warmth. Roxy Griever, hearing the voices, had hurried out. Her troubled gaze went over Lance's half perished face and body, the whole worn, poor, indomitable aspect of him, even while she greeted him. With an almost frightened look, she turned and ran into the house, crying hastily,
"I'll have some hot coffee for you-all boys mighty quick." And 244 when he came limping in, a few minutes later, there was an appetizing steam from the hearth where Polly crouched beside Mary Ann Martha, whispering over a tale.
Dry foot-wear was found for the newcomers, and when they were finally seated in comfort at their food, both women gazed furtively at Lance's thin cheeks, the long unshorn curls of his hair, and Octavia wept quietly. When he had eaten and sat for a little time by the fire, he caught at his mother-in-law's dress as she went past, and asked with an upward glance that melted her heart,
"How soon may I go in thar?"