“Oh,” Florrie was saying, “Mamma.”
They were looking at each other, the man and the woman, long married. Her eyes were hard, and his were sorrowful.
A few chords from the piano reached them. It was Anne; they knew her touch, and it was Anne’s voice now arising, sweet, strong, trembling with the passion of it.
For it was Christmas Eve. Else why this room strewn with holly and gifts and scarlet ribbons, else why this spiciness of cedar pervading the house, else why Anne’s noël arising?
The words came up to them, words that had belonged to Christmas at the small, old-fashioned church where the Rumseys once had been wont to go.
The little boy slipped out into the hall. They heard him pattering down to Anne.
Mary Rumsey, with a gesture of contrition like any girl’s, went to her husband, and the next moment was crying on the little man’s shoulder and his hand was patting her soothingly, gently.
For it was Christmas Eve, eve of the night when Christ was born, and Anne was singing of it:
“For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn,
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!