"Now, Pen, my child!"
The response came from the milk-room, and was followed by the clatter of an empty tin milk-pan falling on the floor.
"It sounded like bells."
"It's the wind, Pen. Sakes alive! but they ought to be here by this time."
"There, aunt Judith!"
Pen suddenly darted out of the kitchen, leaving the long hind-legs of a big pair of waffle-irons sticking helplessly out from the open door of the stove.
"Pen! Penelope!—I declare, she's gone. There, I've dropped another pan. What's got into me to-night? I just do want to see those children. Poor things, how froze they will be!"
Penelope was pressing her eager, excited little face close to the frost-flowers on the sitting-room window. It was of no use, cold as it made the tip of her nose, to strain her blue eyes across the snowy fields, or up the white, glistening reaches of the road. There was nothing like a sleigh in sight, nor did her sharpest listening bring her any sound of coming sleigh-bells.
"Pen! Penelope Farnham! What's that a-burnin'? Sakes alive! if she hasn't gone and stuck them waffle-irons in the fire! She's put a waffle in 'em too."
Yes, and the smoke of the lost waffle was carrying tales into the milk-room.