Johnnie was wont to go on in this dreamy way without expecting an answer; but he was startled to see his father’s face hidden by the shadowy fingers that propped his forehead.
‘Has it made your head ache, papa? Must I go away?’
‘Say that again, Johnnie.’
‘I cannot say it quite right,’ answered the boy; ‘I only know it says that the Angels in Heaven rejoice and are glad over one sinner that repenteth. I thought about it that night after I had been naughty.’
‘You, Johnnie?’ Arthur could hardly believe that child capable of a fault.
‘Yes,’ said Johnnie, with a trembling lip; ‘I was cross at doing my lessons with Aunt Theodora instead of mamma, and I was so sorry. But at night, something seemed to bring that verse, and I thought the Angels must have faces like mamma.’
Certainly his father thought so too.
Theodora’s Christmas morning was cheered by a letter from Percy, to tell her that he was to be with Arthur and Violet on this occasion. It was greater happiness to her than it would even have been to have had him at Brogden.
It was a very quiet day in Cadogan-place. The full freshness of awe and reverence was upon Arthur, and though he hardly spoke, and made almost no demonstration, the strength of his feeling was attested by the fatigue that ensued, partly, perhaps, from the unwonted effort of fixing his attention. All the rest of the day he lay on the sofa, silent and dozing, till in the evening, when left alone with Johnnie, he only roused himself to ask to have a Bible placed within his reach, and there losing his way in searching for the parable of the strayed sheep, he wandered about in the sayings of St. John’s Gospel.
Johnnie’s delight had been the dressing the cathedral cup with a spray of holly sent to him from Brogden by his aunt, and now he sat conning the hymns he had heard in church, and musing over his prints in silence, till his brow caught an expression that strangely blended with those dreamy impressions of his father.