"'THE CHILDREN!' SHE WAS SAYING. 'THEY—THEY—JOHN—THEY MUST BE HERE!'"
"Poor boy. And you gave up going to see her on Christmas Day, and came down here into the country just to—"
"Just to get even with myself for the way I've neglected 'em these two years while my head's been so full of—her. It isn't fair. After last year I'd have come home to-day if it had meant I had to lose—well—Margaret knows I'm here. I don't know what she thinks."
"I don't believe, Guy, boy, she thinks the less of you. Yes—I must go. It will all come right in the end, dear—I'm sure of it. No, I don't know how Margaret feels—Good night—good night!"
Christmas morning, breaking upon a wintry world—the Star in the East long set. Outside the house a great silence of drift-wrapped hill and plain;—inside, a crackling fire upon a wide hearth, and a pair of elderly people waking to a lonely holiday.
Mrs. Fernald crept to the door of her room—the injured knee always made walking difficult after a night's quiet. She meant to sit down by the fire which she had lately heard Marietta stirring and feeding into activity, and warm herself at its flame. She remembered with a sad little smile that she and John had hung their stockings there, and looked to see what miracle had been wrought in the night.
"Father!"—Her voice caught in her throat.... What was all this?... By some mysterious influence her husband learned that she was calling him, though he had not really heard. He came to the door and looked at her, then at the chimneypiece where the stockings hung—a long row of them, as they had not hung since the children grew up—stockings of quality: one of brown silk, Nan's; a fine gray sock with scarlet clocks, Ralph's,—all stuffed to the top, with bundles overflowing upon the chimneypiece and even to the floor below.
"What's this—what's this?" John Fernald's voice was puzzled. "Whose are these?" He limped closer. He put on his spectacles and stared hard at a parcel protruding from the sock with the scarlet clocks.