“Good dog,” and he stooped down and patted the now respectable member of society. “Go into the stable. It is too cold for a short-haired dog to be outside,” and he opened the door for him.
As he turned something passed his face. He heard nothing, but he knew that one of the owls had flown by on its noiseless wings.
“’Frisco and ’Mento,” he said, with a smile, “having your night’s spin? Well, there is a comfortable box for you above when you get through wandering, and you know it. Strange,” he murmured, as he continued his way to the house, “how the whole creation not only groans together, but rejoices together, and is linked together. I used not to think of the dumb creatures; but it is easy to go down, even to the owls, when one begins to care for the children. Ah! that is a pretty sight!” and he stopped short and looked in the window.
The curtains were not drawn. Down in the little dining room for the servants Martha the cook and Jennie, Betty, and old Higby were seated about a blazing fire. Martha was rubbing some kind of ointment on her hands, Jennie and Betty were sewing, and Mrs. Blodgett, enthroned in a big rocking-chair at the head of the table, was reading to them—reading somewhat pompously and condescendingly, but also in a most satisfactory manner, judging from the frequent smiles of her auditors. Higby, indeed, sometimes transgressed by laughing too irrepressibly, upon which occasions Mrs. Blodgett interrupted her reading, took off her glasses, and solemnly scolded him.
The Judge came softly into the house, so that he would not disturb them, and passed quietly upstairs.
Ah! here was the best picture of all, and he paused at the parlor door.
Mrs. Nancy Steele had arrived; the Judge had engaged her to become lady housekeeper, mother-ingeneral, adviser-in-chief, and whatever was needed to make a perfect superintendent for his family.
She was succeeding admirably, and the Judge gazed in intense admiration at the slender, graceful figure at the piano. Mrs. Nancy was charming, very ladylike, and very forceful, under a quiet, almost a languid exterior.
The children were charmed with her. Bethany stood close to her, begging her to sing again. Airy sat near by, quiet and watchful, her eyes glued to Mrs. Nancy’s face. The Judge knew that both little girls adored her, and he was delighted, for he had given them the young widow as a model.
Airy was spending a part of her Christmas holidays at 110 Grand Avenue—the larger part, the Judge shrewdly guessed it would be.