“Have you enjoyed your Christmas, papa?”
The arm that encircled him pressed him a little more closely.
“Yes, my little boy, I have enjoyed it this year. And you?”
“Oh, I have been very, very happy!—I always am now, you know.”
“You are content to be my little boy? You do not want anybody else?”
“I think I would rather be your little boy always now,” answered Bertie; and then he looked up into the face above him with a peculiar depth of gravity, and added, “I feel as if God had given me to you.”
“I think He has, my child; and I am grateful to Him. He has given back to me a part of what He saw fit to take away. He has given me one little son to be with me in my old age.”
Bertie sat up and looked into the face above him.
“Papa,” he said, softly, “will you tell me one story to-night? I want to know about—about it all—when He took them all away.”
There was a deep silence for a few minutes after those words were spoken, and Bertie, gazing into the father’s eyes, half repented of his question, and yet did not repent. He could not read the look upon that face, it awed him into unbroken silence; and yet there was no anger there, no sternness even, only a deep, far-off sadness, as if some picture were slowly rising above the mental horizon that could only be looked upon with tear-dimmed eyes and with tender, haunting regret.