"Then I'll be sorry with you," says the child, with all childhood's divine intuition that to sorrow alone is to know a double sorrow. She hugs Joyce more closely with her tender arms, and Joyce, after a battle with her braver self, gives way, and breaks into bitter tears.
"There now! you've made her cry right out! You're a naughty girl," says Tommy, to his sister in a raging tone, meant to hide the fact that he too, himself is on the point of giving way; in fact, another moment sees him dissolved in tears.
"Never mind, Joycie. Never mind. We love you!" sobs he, getting up on the back of the seat behind her, and making a very excellent attempt at strangulation.
"Do you? There doesn't seem to be any one else, then, but you!" says poor Joyce, dropping Mabel into her lap, and Tommy more to the front, and clasping them both to her with a little convulsive movement.
Perhaps the good cry she has on top of those two loving little heads does her more good than anything else could possibly have done.
CHAPTER XXXI.
"A bitter and perplexed 'What shall I do?' Is worse to man than worse necessity."
Three months have come and gone, and winter is upon us. It is close on Christmastide indeed. All the trees lie bare and desolate, the leaves have fallen from them, and their sweet denizens, the birds, flown or dead.