Mother watched him for a moment through the window. Then with her own hands she built a fire in the grate, for the night was chill. Before it she drew an easy-chair, and put Father's smoking-jacket on the back of it and set his slippers to warm against the fender. On a reading-table near by she laid the little blue china ash-tray you had given Father for Christmas, and beside it a box of matches ready for his hand. Then she called him in.
He came and sat there before the fire, saying nothing, but looking into the flames—looking, looking, till your mind ran back to a Sunday afternoon in summer by the river-side.
"I know what you are thinking, Father."
Slowly he turned his head to you, so that you knew he was listening though he did not speak.
"You're thinking how nice it would be, Father, if you were a little boy like me."
He made no answer. Mother came and sat on one of the arms of his chair, her cheek against his hair. Lizbeth undressed her dolls for the night, crooning a lullaby. One by one you dropped your marbles into their little box. Then you rose and sat like Mother on an arm of Father's chair. For a while you dreamed there, drowsy, in the glow.
"Mother," you said, softly.
"'MOTHER, YOU SAID, SOFTLY'"
"Yes," she whispered back to you.