“Oh, would you, Molly?” Cassie demanded in relief and surprise.
“I think so. And then perhaps you could all get away early to Beachaways——”
“Molly!”
“Don’t use that tone, my dear. The place wasn’t even opened last year. I went to Canada for some hospital work, and took Merle with me and left her at the Lakes with my secretary. I wanted then to suggest that you and Timmy use Beachaways. It’s in a bad condition, I know——”
“Bad condition! Right there on the beach, and all to ourselves! And he can get away every Friday night!”
“Perhaps you’ll have my monkey down with her cousins, now and then. She doesn’t seem to have made strangers of them, exactly.”
“Not exactly,” agreed Cassie with her quiet smile. “They were all crowded into the boys’ big bed when I went up. I carried Rawley into the next room. Tom and Merle had their hands clasped, even in their sleep. Molly,” she added suddenly, in an odd tone, “what—I have to ask you!—what made you come?”
“Christmas, perhaps,” the doctor answered gravely, after a moment. “I’ve always wanted to. But, I’m queer. I couldn’t.”
“Tim’s always wanted to,” his wife said. “He’s always said: ‘There’s no real reason for it! But life has just separated us, and we’ll have to wait until it all comes straight naturally again.’”
“I don’t think those things ever come straight, naturally,” said Mary Madison thoughtfully. “One thinks, ‘Well, what’s the difference? People aren’t necessarily closer, or more congenial, just because they happen to be related!’ But at Christmas time you find it’s all true; that families do belong together; that blood is thicker than water!”