“But we have the big open fireplace in the sitting-room now, dear. We didn’t have that when we were little, Timmy and I.”
“But I’d drather in the dining-room, mother, if that’s what you did!”
“Here are perfectly good new flannels—” Miss Frothingham interposed.
“Take them. But Merle,” the doctor said, a little troubled, “I would have filled a stocking for you if I had known you really wanted me to, dear. Will you remind me, next Christmas, and I’ll see to it?”
“Yes, mother,” Merle promised, suddenly lifeless and subdued. “But next Christmas is so—so far,” she faltered, with watering eyes and a trembling lip.
“But all the shops are closed now, dear,” her mother reminded her sensibly. “You know my brother and I never had a quarrel before,” she added, after a space, to the younger woman. “And this was never an open breach.”
“Was?” Miss Frothingham echoed, anxious and eager.
“Wasn’t. No,” said her employer thoughtfully. “It was just a misunderstanding—the wrong word said here, and the wrong construction put upon it there, and then resentment—and silence—our lives separated——”
She fell silent herself, but it was Merle, attentively watching her, who said now,
“Their father’s sick, and they aren’t going to hang up their stockings!”