IF the Sunday callers to the kitchen had astonished the family group, this descent upon them with work-basket, book, and, above all, lamp, fairly took from them the power of utterance—at least after Dorothy's first startled exclamation, when she retired into flushed silence.
"Lewis was going to read to me," explained Louise, in a tone intended to convey the idea that their proceeding was the most natural and ordinary one imaginable, "and I thought it was a pity to waste a new book on one person; so we came down for you all to hear. May I sit by you, mother?"
Without waiting for answer, the artful daughter-in-law took her pretty bronze lamp from her husband's hand, and, setting it in "just the right angle," drew one of the wooden-seated chairs, and settled herself near it before the audience had time to recover from its surprise.
"Now, Lewis, we're ready," she added, in complacent tone. She had resolved not to venture on the doubtful question as to whether they desired to hear any reading. If their consent was taken for granted, what could they do but listen?
Nevertheless John seemed resolved not to be taken by guile; he drew himself up, with a shuffling noise, and was evidently making ready for flight. Her husband telegraphed a significant glance at Louise, which said, as plainly as words could, that encouraging sentence, "I told you so; John won't stay." But she saw the whole, and, while her heart beat for the success of her scheme, her voice was prompt and assured.
"O John! Have you got to go to the barn so soon? Well, never mind, we'll wait for you. I selected this book on purpose, because I was so sure you would like it; it is a special favourite of mine."
Thus addressed, John, who had had no intention of going to the barn, but simply of escaping, sat down again, for very astonishment; and Lewis, who was both amazed and amused at his wife's boldness, promptly seized the opportunity to commence his book without further introduction.
It was nearly eight o'clock when the reading commenced, the usual hour for the family to separate, but for an unbroken hour Lewis Morgan's voice went steadily on. The shade of embarrassment which he felt at first speedily lost itself in his genuine interest in the book, new to him; and perhaps he never showed his reading powers to better advantage. Louise, to whom the story was an old one, had leisure to watch its effect on the group, and was more than satisfied with the hushed way in which Mother Morgan laid down her great shears on the uncovered stand, and finally transferred them to her lap, that their clatter might not make her lose a word; at the knitting which dropped from Dorothy's fingers, and lay unheeded, while she, unchid by mother, fixed what were certainly great hungry eyes on the reader, and took in every sentence; at the unwinking eyes of Father Morgan, who did not interrupt the hour by a single yawn; but, above all, at the gleam of intense satisfaction in John's face when the young minister came off victor. Besides, did she, or did she not, hear a quick, suddenly suppressed sigh coming from the mother's heart, as she listened to the story of that other mother's wrestlings in prayer in her closet, "down behind the beans." The loud-spoken clock, as it clanged out the hour of nine, was the first interruption to the reading since it struck eight; and Louise, mindful of the unwisdom of carrying her experiment too far, hastened to change the programme.
"Why, Lewis, it is nine o'clock! It won't do to read any more."
And Lewis, who had many an evening read until ten, and occasionally until eleven, to that other family group in the old home, looked up with obtuseness exactly like a man, and was about to ask, "Why not?" but the warning look in her eyes brought him back to the level of present experiences; and, despite Dorothy's hungry eyes and John's utter stillness indicating that he was entirely willing to hear more, the book was promptly closed.