This bomb seemed to have paralyzed the little family.
"I--I--tell him----" stammered Mrs. Prescott, looking piteously at Nancy for help.
"You'd better go right down, Mother. Why, you look frightened to death, dear."
"I am. He frightens me dreadfully. I can't bear sarcastic people. Do go down alone, Nancy,--tell him I have a headache."
"No, no! That wouldn't be wise. What can he say? He may want to be very nice," said Nancy, reassuringly. "Come along--don't keep him waiting. Here, just tuck up your hair a bit. Come on, Alma."
Inwardly quaking, but outwardly preserving a dignified composure, the three descended the staircase, with the calmness of people going to some inevitable fate.
"He can't bite you, dear," whispered Nancy to her mother, with a nervous little giggle.
Mr. Prescott was standing perfectly still, with his back toward the door, staring with an evidently absorbed interest at the wall in front of him. He turned slowly, as Mrs. Prescott entered the room, and for a moment surveyed her and the two girls without speaking. Then he said, casually:
"Good-afternoon, Uncle Thomas," said Mrs. Prescott, in a rather faint voice, and flushing crimson with nervousness. "It--it is very kind of you----"
"Not at all," he interrupted, brusquely, "not at all. May we have a light--it is rather dark."
Nancy quickly lit the gas, and as the light from the jet shone down on her upturned face the old man scrutinized her keenly. A queer, half-tender, but repressed expression changed the lines in his stern old face for a moment, then he looked at Alma, who was regarding him with perfectly unconcealed terror and awe.
"How do you do?" he said to her, holding out his hand. "How do you do? You're my niece Alma, eh? Anne is the one who looks like--like my nephew, and Alma is the one who resembles her mother." He said this as if he were repeating some directions to himself. "I haven't seen you since you were children." He shook Alma's hand formally, and sat down at Mrs. Prescott's timid invitation, The short silence which ensued, while it seemed like an age of discomfort to the Prescotts, apparently was unobserved by him.
"It has been a very long time since--since I have seen you, Uncle Thomas," said Mrs. Prescott in desperation, quite aware that this remark, like any one she should make just then, was a very awkward one.