Who would enjoy the tea now, when Noel lay dead or dying upstairs?
"Oh, it's awful! awful!" she cried, "worse than anything I have ever thought of or made up for my stories! And I've spoken so crossly to him to-day, even though it was his birthday! Oh, what shall we do! What shall we do!"
When Chris returned he found Diana pacing the hall like a demented person.
The doctor followed on his heels, and with two or three strides had mounted the stairs and gone into the nursery.
"Oh, Chris," said Diana with tearful eyes, "what shall we do? I believe he is quite dead already."
"He can't be," said Chris. "Wasn't it awful seeing him fall! I've been thinking the whole way along to the doctor's and back, of my cross words to him about the carol. We haven't been kind to him, Dinah—over and over again we haven't! And we can't ask him to forgive us. And it's his birthday. Do you think we could pray to God? Noel gets all his prayers answered, he says."
"He's so fond of God," moaned Diana; "perhaps God is very fond of him and wants him in heaven. I wish mother would come to us."
But it was a long while before their mother came, and when she did, all the glow and brightness of her face had vanished. She and the doctor went into her boudoir and talked a little, and then he went away, saying:
"I'll be up the first thing in the morning, but there's nothing more can be done."
Then Chris and Diana crept up to their mother.