“Pray be seated, Mrs. Danforth; we are delighted to see you,” said Ruth Warren, turning to stir the fire into a yet brighter glow. “We like firelight better than any other light,” she added. “Sit down, children.”
Mrs. Danforth had seated herself very quickly, as her eyes fell upon Alice and Ben.
Betty curled up again on the cushion. Elsa drew a little way back from the fireside into the shadow and sat upright upon a chair. Alice, as if spellbound by something in Mrs. Danforth’s face, remained kneeling upon the ottoman, and Ben stood by his sister’s side with his left hand upon her shoulder.
The twins made a striking picture there on the hearth-rug in the full light of the blazing fire,—Alice, fair-haired, delicate-featured, with great soft blue eyes and broad white forehead; Ben with the same colouring of hair and complexion, with boyish, earnest face, frank, handsome blue eyes, slender figure and well-shaped shoulders.
“So, Elsa, these are your friends, Alice and Ben?” Mrs. Danforth asked in a slightly unsteady voice now, loosening her furs as she spoke. She looked very white; and Ruth Warren remembered that Mrs. Danforth had been ill in her room a few days before.
“THE TWINS MADE A STRIKING PICTURE.”
“Yes, grandmother,” Elsa’s voice answered out of the half-shadow where she was sitting.
The twins nodded their heads. Alice shyly, and Ben quite gravely. “Are you Elsa’s grandmother?” he inquired, fixing his blue eyes upon Mrs. Danforth.
She merely bowed her head, and asked in the same rather unsteady voice: “Your last name is what?”