One Sunday—it was ten days or so after Maud's birth, and the weather had been so bitterly cold that the mother had herself forbidden our bringing Muriel to the other side of the house where she and the baby lay—Mrs. Tod was laying the dinner, and John stood at the window playing with his three boys.
He turned abruptly, and saw all the chairs placed round the table—all save one.
"Where is Muriel's chair, Mrs. Tod?"
"Sir, she says she feels so tired like, she'd rather not come down to-day," answered Mrs. Tod, hesitatingly.
"Not come down?"
"Maybe better not, Mr. Halifax. Look out at the snow. It'll be warmer for the dear child to-morrow."
"You are right. Yes, I had forgotten the snow. She shall come down to-morrow."
I caught Mrs. Tod's eyes; they were running over. She was too wise to speak of it—but she knew the truth as well as we.
This Sunday—I remember it well—was the first day we sat down to dinner with the one place vacant.
For a few days longer, her father, every evening when he came in from the mills, persisted in carrying her down, as he had said, holding her on his knee during tea, then amusing her and letting the boys amuse her for half-an-hour or so before bed-time. But at the week's end even this ceased.