“No! Go right ahead!” he cried as heartily as though some one had asked for a match. He was intensely happy that the matter was settled between them. Now the harder she cried the more he liked it, for they understood one another. So she cried and he walked softly about, his hands in his pockets and his lips puckered for the whistle that he did not dare permit himself.
Ma Schofield interrupted this near-domestic scene by her arrival, carrying a tray, on which were several glasses covered with a film of frost and out of which appeared little green forests. Code ceased to think about whistling.
“Oh, Ma Schofield, what have you done?” cried Nellie, her tears for the moment forgetting to flow as her widening eyes took in the delights of the frosted glasses and piles of cake behind them.
“Done?” queried ma. “I haven’t done anything but what my conscience tells me ought to be done. If yours cal’lates to disturb you some you can go right on up to your room, lamb, for you must be dead with lugging them children around.”
Nellie’s tears disappeared not to return. She shook her head.
“No, ma,” she said; “my conscience is just like them children––sleeping so hard it would take Gabriel’s trumpet to wake ’em up. It’s more tired than I am.”
“All right,” said ma, with finality; “we will now proceed to refresh ourselves.”
It was two o’clock before they separated for the remainder of the night.
Code’s room, with its big mahogany double bed, was given over to Nellie and the children while he gladly resigned himself to the humpy plush sofa.