“Where have you two gadabouts been?” he laughed merrily. “What do you mean by staying out this late? Don’t you know it’s Christmas Eve?”
“We’ve been to see Cousin Annie, daddy; and it would make your heart ache to look at her! She’s there all alone. Can’t you go down and bring her up here?”
“Yes, I could, but she wouldn’t come, not on Christmas Eve. Did she have her candle burning?”
“Yes, just one poor little miserable candle that hardly gave any light at all.”
“And it was in the corner on a little table?”
“Yes, all by itself.”
“Poor dear, she always lights it. She’s lighted it for almost twenty years.”
“Is it for somebody she loved who died?”
“No—it’s for somebody she loved who is alive, but who never came back and won’t.”
He studied them both for a moment, as if in doubt, then he added in a determined voice, motioning them to a seat beside him: