"'Merry Christmas to Ralph from Nan,'" he read. "'To Ralph from Nan,'" he repeated vaguely. His gaze turned to his wife. His eyes were wide like a child's. But she was getting to her feet, from the chair into which she had dropped.
"The children!" she was saying. "They—they—John—they must be here!"
He followed her through the chilly hall to the front staircase, seldom used now, and up—as rapidly as those slow, stiff joints would allow. Trembling, Mrs. Fernald pushed open the first door at the top.
A rumpled brown head raised itself from among the pillows, a pair of sleepy but affectionate brown eyes smiled back at the two faces peering in, and a voice brimful of mirth cried softly: "Merry Christmas, mammy and daddy!" They stared at her, their eyes growing misty. It was their little daughter Nan, not yet grown up!
They could not believe it. Even when they had been to every room;—had seen their big son Ralph, still sleeping, his yet youthful face, full of healthy colour, pillowed on his brawny arm, and his mother had gently kissed him awake to be half-strangled in his hug;—when they had met Edson's hearty laugh as he fired a pillow at them—carefully, so that his father could catch it;—when they had seen plump pretty Carol pulling on her stockings as she sat on the floor smiling up at them;—Oliver, advancing to meet them in his bath-robe and slippers;—Guy, holding out both arms from above his blankets, and shouting "Merry Christmas!—and how do you like your children?"—even then it was difficult to realise that not one was missing—and that no one else was there. Unconsciously Mrs. Fernald found herself looking about for the sons' wives and daughters' husbands and children. She loved them all;—yet—to have her own, and no others, just for this one day—it was happiness indeed.
When they were all downstairs, about the fire, there was great rejoicing. They had Marietta in; indeed, she had been hovering continuously in the background, to the apparently frightful jeopardy of the breakfast in preparation, upon which, nevertheless, she had managed to keep a practised eye.
"And you were in it, Marietta?" Mr. Fernald said to her in astonishment, when he first saw her. "How in the world did you get all these people into the house and to bed without waking us?"
"It was pretty consid'able of a resk," Marietta replied, with modest pride, "'seein' as how they was inclined to be middlin' lively. But I kep' a-hushin' 'em up, and I filled 'em up so full of victuals they couldn't talk. I didn't know's there'd be any eatables left for to-day," she added—which last remark, since she had been slyly baking for a week, Guy thought might be considered pure bluff.
At the breakfast table, while the eight heads were bent, this thanksgiving arose, as the master of the house, in a voice not quite steady, offered it to One Unseen:
Thou who camest to us on that first Christmas Day, we bless Thee for this good and perfect gift Thou sendest us to-day, that Thou forgettest us not in these later years, but givest us the greatest joy of our lives in these our loyal children.