"No, indeed," he protested. "It's only a few steps; I can walk it as well as not. The sight of you and the baby has made me stronger already."
He sent a coloured boy on ahead with his valise, and they walked slowly up the path, with Fritz running wildly around them, barking a glad welcome.
"How sweet and homelike it all looks!" he said, as he stepped into the hall, where Mom Beck was just lighting the lamps. Then he sank down on the couch, completely exhausted, and wearily closed his eyes.
The Little Colonel looked at his white face in alarm. All the gladness seemed to have been taken out of the homecoming.
Her mother was busy trying to make him comfortable, and paid no attention to the disconsolate little figure wandering about the house alone. Mom Beck had gone for the doctor.
The supper was drying up in the warming-oven. The ice-cream was melting in the freezer. Nobody seemed to care. There was no one to notice the pretty table with its array of flowers and cut glass and silver.
When Mom Beck came back, Lloyd ate all by herself, and then sat out on the kitchen door-step while the doctor made his visit.
She was just going mournfully off to bed with an aching lump in her throat, when her mother opened the door.
"Come tell papa good-night," she said. "He's lots better now."
She climbed up on the bed beside him, and buried her face on his shoulder to hide the tears she had been trying to keep back all evening.