"Trying to see if I'm pretty, father?" she said saucily, lifting her mouth for a kiss.
"Pretty! pretty! Why, daughter of Babylon, the lilies of the field are not half so lovely--and Solomon, in all his glory--" He stepped back and folded his arms. Emma flung both little hands up to his cheeks in glee. "Kiss me! oh, you dear old father! Solomon in all his glory never knew you--didn't have you for a father--and so that is where I have got the best of Solomon! Poor old Solomon, I wouldn't trade with him!" She ran laughing down the hall, and Katherine smiled up at her husband.
"What a dear girl she is! I am so glad for Roy--for all of us;" she said. "It is easy and a pleasure to build on an addition to our air-castles for her."
Griffith bent over to kiss her. "Yes, God has been very good to us all the days of our lives, Katherine. The struggles have all been outside of the most sacred--of----" He hesitated as he recalled some of the struggles, and touched his lips to her hair where the gray was growing distinct. "But all those seem to be about over, now, and for us the dawn is here and the brilliant day is only just ahead. Ah, little wife, the sun will rise for us to-morrow on a day which shall have no conflict of soul before us. How happy we shall be when the other boys get home! It makes me feel young again only to think of it I I am going over to the College now. A business meeting of the trustees." He smiled back at her and went humming down the lawn: "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"
Two hours later in the twilight, there was a confused scuffle of feet and babble of muffled voices on the front porch. Katherine, ever on the alert for news from her absent sons, opened the door. A dark, repellent face--the face of an ascetic, cast in the mold of sorrow and soured by the action of time, was before her. She recognized the pastor of the church near by. "Sister Davenport," he said, "you had better step back. We have sad news. We------ He is dead."
"Which one? Which one?" cried Katherine, "Howard or Beverly?" She was struggling to push by them out on to the porch. Roy rushed from the hallway and past the group.
"Great God! It is father! It is father!" he cried, and turned to shield his mother from the sight. "Come back! Come back!" he said grasping her by the waist and trying to force her into a chair. He had, as we all have at such times, a vague idea of somehow saving her by gaining time. The little group was staggering into the room and its load was laid upon the couch. Griffith Davenport was dead. The smile on the face was there still, but the poor brave heart would beat no more forever.