Anne laughed; a teasing, yet a provoking laugh, too, it was. “Sort of mile-stones on the road to Dover, little John’s mugs will be, won’t they, father? This will make the——”
John Rumsey, with a plunge up the steps, sent back a sort of frenzied snort.
“Change your shoes,” called Anne after him; “it’s slushy down street, I know. I laid your clothes out; the buttons are in.”
“Thank the Lord!” John Rumsey’s voice came back. “I’ve been fighting my way through mobs, I’m exhausted.”
The dear, blessed, grizzle-headed little Daddy! It was he who, after the long pull, had made hickory fires and crimson hangings and silver mugs possible. The girl’s eyes softened to almost maternal tenderness. The dear, square-set, grizzled little Daddy!
Anne stretched her strong, young length in the chair and consciously luxuriated in the warmth, the richness, the beauty around her.
“It is like a hymn, the colors,” she was thinking.
Again a door opened, somewhere above this time, and protesting childish voices came down the stairway, the voices of sister Florrie’s babies come for Christmas. Anne’s eyes deepened as she listened, laughingly, yet broodingly.
It was sister Florrie answering:
“Now go on down to Norah, John Rumsey, and take your little sister. Go on! I’ll lose my mind if you say another word about Santy Claus; go on, I’ve got all that bed full of things to tie up yet——”