Without another word, and with a strange sense of solemnity about him, the young husband turned and dropped upon his knees beside his wife.
A few minutes thereafter they of the kitchen were startled by the unexpected entrance of the young couple into their midst. Almost any movement would have startled the quiet that reigned therein.
The kitchen, on a dull day, with its scarcity of windows, was a dark and dingy spot, the clean and shining stove being the only speck of brightness. The family group was complete; yet Louise, as she glanced around her, taking in their occupations, or want of occupations, could not forbear feeling the sense of dulness which their positions suggested. Farmer Morgan, with his steel-bowed spectacles mounted on his forehead, winked and blinked over the columns of the weekly paper. Mrs. Morgan sat bolt upright in her favourite straight-backed chair, and held in her hands an old-fashioned family Bible, in which Nellie had dutifully been spelling out the words until her restlessness had gotten the better of her mother's patience, and she had been sent to the straight-backed chair in the corner, to sit "until she could learn to stand still, and not twist around on one foot, and hop up and down when she was reading!" How long will poor Nellie have to "sit" before she learns that lesson?
Dorothy, without the hopping, was not one whit less restless, and lounged from one chair to another in an exasperatingly aimless way, calling forth from her mother, several times, a sharp—
"Dorothy, why can't you sit still when you get a chance? If you worked as hard as I do all the week, you would be glad enough of a day of rest." But poor Dorothy was not glad; she hated the stillness and inaction of the Sabbath; she breathed a sigh of relief when the solemn-voiced clock clanged out another hour, and looked forward with a sort of satisfaction even to the bustle of the coming wash-day morning. John was there, as silent and immovable as a statue, sitting in his favourite corner, behind the stove; in his favourite attitude, boots raised high to the stove-hearth; slouched hat on, drawn partly over his eyes; hands in his pockets, and a deeper shade of sullenness on his face. So it seemed to Louise. "Poor fellow!" she said, in compassionate thought. "It is a surprise to me that he doesn't do something awfully wicked. He will do it, too; I can see it in his face; unless—"
But she didn't finish her thought, even to herself. These various persons glanced up on the entrance of the two, and looked their surprise. Then Farmer Morgan, seeing that they proposed to take seats, moved his chair a little and motioned Lewis nearer the stove, with the words—
"A nasty day; fire feels good."
"Yet it hasn't rained much," Lewis said, watching Louise, and finding that she went over to the unoccupied chair nearest Nellie, he took the proffered seat.
"Rained enough to make mean going for to-morrow; and we've got to go to town in the morning, rain or shine. I never did see the beat of this winter for rain and mud; I don't believe it will freeze up before Christmas."
"You can't get started very early for town," remarked Mrs. Morgan. "There was so much to do yesterday that I didn't get around to fixing the butter, and it will take quite a little spell in the morning; and Dorothy didn't count over the eggs, and pack 'em, either. Dorothy's fingers were all thumbs, by the way she worked yesterday; we didn't get near as much done as common."