Very patiently the poor little half-frozen fingers struggled with the scant kindlings and the coal that seemed determined never to light; but they succeeded at last, and the room began to grow a little warm. Then she dressed Annie, and then it began to seem very late indeed, and she wondered if mamma would never wake up. She went to the bedside and, bending over, kissed her mother gently, then started back with a sudden alarm.
“Why, Annie, she’s so cold—almost like poor papa—only you can’t remember—just before they took him away.”
“No, she can’t be like papa,” Annie said stoutly, “for he was dead, and mamma is asleep.”
“Yes, she’s asleep,” said the elder sister firmly. “We must wait till she wakes up. We’ll look over the way, and then, maybe, it won’t seem so long.”
But over the way was brighter than ever this Christmas morning. The curtains had been looped back once more, the table glittered with lovely gifts, and presently the little girl who lived there came to the windows. She looked up at them—they were sure of it; but they could not have guessed what she said, as she turned away, and spoke to her mother.
“O mamma,” cried the sweet young voice, “won’t you come and see these two poor little girls? They stood there all day yesterday and last night; and now see how sad they look. I can’t eat my Christmas candies or play with my Christmas things while they look so pale and lonesome. Won’t you go over and see them, mamma dear?”
Mrs. Rosenburgh was a woman of warm and earnest sympathies when once they were aroused. When she was a girl she too had had quick impulses like her child’s; but she had grown selfish, perhaps, as she grew older, or maybe only careless; for the quick sympathies were there still, as you could see, now that her little girl had touched them.
“To be sure I will,” she answered at once. “Poor little things! I wish we could make merry Christmas for all New York; but since we can’t, at least we won’t have faces white with want looking in at our very windows.”
So the watching, wondering children saw the large, fair lady wrap herself in a heavy shawl and tie a hood over her head, and then come out and cross the street and enter their house.
“What if she saw us, and what if she is coming here!” Ethel said breathlessly.