“Yes, my darling.” He took the steamer-rugs his wife had left beside him and wrapped them around the woman-child, yellow braid and all, and they stayed there together. Once she whispered,
“You’re praying, too, father dear, aren’t you? I feel that you’re praying;” and he held her closer and whispered, “Yes.” By-and-by she fell asleep, and he held her still.
The first streaks of dawn filtered through the rooms, strange to those who sat bound in darkness and the shadow of death, a household prepared only for the night. Then an electric current seemed to run through the breathing souls in it.
The doctor came out in the hall and said, “She will live!” A door opened farther down—one flashed to another, “She will live!” The message flew from lip to lip, from heart to heart. The returning breath of the little ruler of the house revivified all within it. The awakened children ran out for a moment to whisper the gladness, the servants stole down the back stairs to clatter in the kitchen and make preparations for an early breakfast, one could hear the cocks crowing, and the sunshine grew strong and gathered into a long bar of light. Quintilia would live.
“You may come in and see her for just a minute,” said Mrs. Nichols to her husband, leading him in as one leads the blind. He fell on his knees by the bed, awestricken. Was this the little rosy darling of his love? But she would live—she would live! As he looked the eyes opened recognizingly; there was a faint roguish smile on the beautiful lips, and the faintest movement under the bedclothes.
“She wants you to kiss her foot,” said the divining mother.
“Just hearken to the voice of himself in there,” said Ellen, the waitress, as she came into the kitchen from the breakfast-room. “He says you’re to make some more coffee, for this isn’t fit to be drank. Oh, he’s ragin’! He’s sent Loulou from the table for spilling her milk, and the boy’s not to play golf for a week on account of the dirty hands of him, the poor child; and he’s got Miss Christine crying into the porridge, telling her how she’d oughter look after her little sisters better. Oh, he’s the holy terror the morn, and herself not downstairs to quaite him! Take your time with the coffee, Ann; sure he’ll murder me when I get back.”
“The pore man!” said the cook indulgently, pouring out a fresh installment of the fragrant brown liquid into the coffee-pot. “’Tis the way wid ’em all; sure ’tis drunk wid sorrow he’s been! What can ye expict? The big sobs was rindin’ him whin he come from the child’s room early, and sure he’s got to take it out of somebody. Run you wid the coffee now!”
“Please don’t go down town to-day,” his wife implored him afterwards. “You look so horribly tired. Stay at home and rest.” She put her arms round him tenderly, feeling that now was the opportunity for the happiness of mutual thanksgiving; and he unconsciously pushed her away from him as he answered,
“Nonsense! There’s no reason why I should rest.”