“Sit on the other side, Jack,” said the father. “It is less draughty. Come to this window.”
He watched the boy in anxiety. But his children were the only beings in the world who took not the slightest notice of him.
“Look, mother, look!” cried the boy. “They fly right in my face”—he meant the snowflakes.
“Come into this corner,” repeated his father, out of another world.
“He’s jumped on this one’s back, mother, an’ they’re riding to the bottom!” cried the boy, jumping with glee.
“Tell him to come on this side,” the little man bade his wife.
“Jack, kneel on this cushion,” said the mother, putting her white hand on the place.
The boy slid over in silence to the place she indicated, waited still for a moment, then almost deliberately, stridently cried:
“Look at all those in the corner, mother, making a heap,” and he pointed to the cluster of snowflakes with finger pressed dramatically on the pane, and he turned to his mother a bit ostentatiously.
“All in a heap!” she said.