"Why did your mother go to Heaven and leave you and forget you, Minnie?" he asked.
"Heaven's a better place than this, if what they tell about it's true," bitterly. "I ain't blamin' her for goin', myself."
"Izzy," came the call in a few moments again. "Did you tell grandpa to come in?"
Izzy went running, for when he turned to look, the cane had slipped from his grandfather's hand again and rolled to the foot of the steps, and his head above the snowy beard was fallen on his breast. Nor would he in this world lift it again, though none of the three grasped this.
Aunt Cordelia was decided at the breakfast table the next morning.
"They will not want you next door with Izzy today," she told Emmy Lou.
"Mayn't he come here?"
"I doubt if his mother will want him to come today."
The day following, however, Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Katie went next door from the breakfast table and when they came back they brought Izzy with them, not for a while, but for the day. His dark eyes were troubled and his cheeks were pale. He was kindly and affectionate. Aunt Cordelia said so.
And Aunt Cordelia agreed that after dinner Bob could ask Mrs. Noble to let Minnie come over.