“Sh! What was that?” she suddenly exclaimed. There had been a faint sound outside the window. It had ceased now.
“It was nothing, Bab!” said her husband. “How nervous you are!”
Even as he spoke the sound was repeated, and he himself started now.
“I’m catching your nervousness, Bab,” he said, with a short laugh. “The wind is the very deuce to-night.”
At that moment a little girl in her nightgown ran out from the adjoining room, and with a gleeful cry sprang into his arms, her long yellow hair spreading itself over his shoulder.
“You see, dear old papa, Bab wasn’t asleep!” she cried, covering his face with kisses.
“And why isn’t Bab asleep?” her father said, with an assumption of sternness.
“Because she can’t sleep. The wind makes such a noise in the pines, and the icicles keep falling off the eaves, and make such a pretty tinkling on the snow. Do you hear it? Hark!”
“The wind increases fearfully,” said the wife, going to the window and drawing the shade. “It is a bitter night.”
“Bad enough for anybody to be out in,” said Dixon, with the comfortable air of one safely housed. He moved his chair to the fire, and began fondling and playing with the pretty child on his knee. Her little face, however, had grown suddenly grave.