Emmie came in crying.
"Gamma, she made me fall down on the g'avel."
Val, without explanation or apology, flushed angrily and ran up-stairs. She knocked at her father's door.
"Come in," he said, and she went over in the dim candlelight and stood by his bed.
"How you feel, father?"
"Little tired," he answered. "Are you come to say good-night?"
"I 'spose I mustn't stay?"
"Oh, a minute or two."
She perched on the side of his bed. She had come in with the express intention of making complaints. Some vague notion of sparing him because he was ill kept her tongue-tied.
"Isn't this a nice old house?" he said, presently.