The thought threw Mrs. Burton into the profoundest depths of reverie, from which she was aroused by Budge, who asked:
“Aunt Alice, do you see the Lord?”
“No, Budge!” exclaimed Mrs. Burton, with a start. “Why do you ask?”
“Why,” said Budge, “you was lookin’ so hard through the window, an’ right toward where you couldn’t see anythin’ but sky; an’ your eyes had such an ever-so-far look in them that I thought you must be lookin’ straight at the Lord.”
“If you sees Him,” said Toddie, “I wiss you’d ask him to send that dream back again to-night; to push on my bwains an’ make it come back, and then let me stay asleep until I eat up all de candy I gotted into my pockets an’ hands.”
The appearance of the chambermaid, who came to dress the boys for breakfast, put an end to the conversation, but Mrs. Burton determined that it should be renewed at the earliest opportunity, or, rather, that her discoveries of her own shortcomings as a teacher of children should lead to an early and practical reformation.
The fit of mental abstraction into which this resolution threw her was the cause of a silence which puzzled her husband considerably, for he could plainly see by her face that no affair merely matured was at the bottom of her reticence, and that what in men would be called temper was equally absent from her heart. In fact, the result upon Mrs. Burton’ face and actions was so beneficial that the lady’s husband determined to plead toothache as an excuse to remain at home for a day and look at her.
The mere suggestion, however, elicited from Mrs. Burton the mention of so many absolute necessities which could be procured only in the city and by her husband, that he departed by a train even earlier than the one upon which he usually travelled, and with sensations very like those of a man who has been forcibly ejected from a residence.
Then Mrs. Burton led her nephews into the sitting-room, seated herself, placed an arm tightly about each little boy, and said: “Children, is there anything that you would very much like to know?”
“Yesh,” answered Toddie, promptly. “I’d like to know what we’s going to have for dinner to-day?”