"The first of December."
"I am glad. Little Maud's birthday will be in the same month as mine."
"But you came in the snow, Muriel, and now it is warm and mild."
"There will be snow on my birthday, though. There always is. The snow is fond of me, father. It would like me to lie down and be all covered over, so that you could not find me anywhere."
I heard John try to echo her weak, soft laugh.
"This month it will be eleven years since I was born, will it not, father?"
"Yes, my darling."
"What a long time! Then, when my little sister is as old as I am, I shall be—that is, I should have been—a woman grown. Fancy me twenty years old, as tall as mother, wearing a gown like her, talking and ordering, and busy about the house. How funny!" and she laughed again. "Oh! no, father, I couldn't do it. I had better remain always your little Muriel, weak and small, who liked to creep close to you, and go to sleep in this way."
She ceased talking—very soon she was sound asleep. But—the father!
Muriel faded, though slowly. Sometimes she was so well for an hour or two that the Hand seemed drawn back into the clouds, till of a sudden again we discerned it there.