Creep home and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among;
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.”
“Bee-youtiful, Dorry!” remarked Leon, from the easy chair, where he had thrown himself down when he came in. “If you’d only just put a little more feeling into the last part of it, you’d have made me cry.”
“Don’t you mind his impertinence, Dot,” said Mr. Arnold. “I’ll try to keep him quiet, and you sing something else. No matter if it is late; it is our last night together for some time.”
So Dorothy sang on, giving them one old favorite after another, as they were called for; and to Alex, as he stood leaning on the piano with his chin in his hands, watching the group before him, it seemed that no home could be happier than this one, where parents and children were bound together in such pleasant, lasting intimacy. It was only an every-day home picture, it is true, but one telling an eloquent story of father and mother love, of respect and honor from the children, well-deserved and freely given, of perfect understanding and good-will on both sides.
“Now,” said Dorothy mischievously; “I’ll stop, after I have sung one more for the benefit of the boys.” And turning back to the piano, she sang “Sweet Home.”
Her face at first was brimming with fun; but the old familiar strains brought back her former mood and, dropping her tone of exaggerated sentiment, she sang it as simply and sweetly as a little child, while her hearers, forgetting to laugh at the trite old lines, took up the refrain of the last verse, and the sound died away in a happy chorus of “sweet home.”
No one broke the hush that followed, until Leon said pensively,—