"But," interrupted Molly, her eyes looking bigger and rounder than usual, "but suppose the man had been waiting outside to catch him--your grandfather--grandmother, when he came in?"
"But the man wasn't doing anything of the sort, my dear Molly. He had gone off in a fright, and when my grandmother thought it over coolly, she felt convinced that he was not a regular burglar, and so it turned out. He was a man who worked at a smithy near by, and this was his first attempt at burglary. He had heard that my grandfather was to be out late, through one of the servants, whom he had persuaded not to lock the door, on the pretense that he might be passing and would look in to say good-night. It all came out afterwards."
"No," said grandmother. "The punishments for housebreaking and such things in those days were so frightfully severe, that kind-hearted people often refrained from accusing the wrong-doers. This man had been in sore want of money for some reason or other; he was not a dishonest character. I believe the end of it was that my grandfather forgave him, and put him in the way of doing better."
"That was very nice," said Molly, with a sigh of relief.
"Good-bye," said Ralph, who was just then strapping his books together for school. "Thank you for the story, grandmother. If it is fine this afternoon," he added, "may I stay out later? I want to go a walk into the country."
"Certainly, my boy," said grandmother. "But you'll be home by dinner."
"All right," said Ralph, as he marched off.
"And grandmother, please," said Sylvia, "may Molly and I go out with Marcelline this afternoon to do some shopping? The pretty Christmas things are coming in now, and we have lots to do."
"Certainly, my dears," said grandmother again, and about two o'clock the little girls set off, one on each side of good-natured Marcelline, in high spirits, to do their Christmas shopping.
Grandmother watched them from the window, and thought how pretty they looked, and the thought earned her back to the time--not so very long ago did it seem to her now--when their mother had been just as bright and happy as they--the mother who had never lived to see them more than babies. Grandmother's eyes filled with tears, but she smiled through the tears.