“My father says it is the writing with a conscience,” said Gertrude.
“Yes, with life, faculty, and point, so as to hinder the conscience from being a dead weight,” added Geraldine.
“No wonder,” said Lance, “with such contributors as the Harewoods, and such a war-correspondent as Aubrey May.”
Just then the door began to open, and a black silk personage disconsolately exclaimed--
“Master Clement! Master Clem! Wherever is the boy gone, when he ought to be in his bed?”
“Ha, Sibby!” cried Lance, catching both hands, and kissing the cheery, withered-apple cheeks of the old nurse. “You see your baby has begun to run alone.”
“Ah, Master Lance, ‘twas your doing. You always was the mischief.”
“No indeed, Sibby, the long boy did it all by himself, before ever I was in the house; but I’ll bring him back again.”
“May I not stay a little longer, Sibby,” said Clement, rather piteously, “to hear Lance sing? I have been looking forward to it all day.”
“If ye’ll take yer jelly, sir,” said Sibby, “as it’s fainting ye’ll be, and bringing our hearts into our mouths.”
So Sibby administered her jelly, and heard histories of Lance’s children, then, after exacting a promise that Master Lance should only sing once, she withdrew, as peremptory and almost as happy as in her once crowded nursery.
“What shall that once be, Clem?” asked Lance.
“Is it not too much?” he inquired, glancing towards his widowed sister.
“I want it as much as he does,” she answered fervently.
At thirty-eight Lance’s voice was, if possible, more perfect in sweetness, purity, and expression than it had been at twenty, and never had the poem, connected with all the crises of their joint lives, come more home to their hearts, filling them with aspiration as well as memory.
Then Lance helped his brother up, and was surprised, after those cheerful tones, to feel the weight so prone and feeble, that Gerald’s support on the other side was welcome. Mrs. Grinstead followed to take Gertrude to her room and find her children’s photographs.
The two young people began to smile as soon as they were left alone.
“Yes--an awful hole,” and both indulged in a merry laugh.
“My mother mentions it with pious horror,” said Anna.
“Life is much more interesting when it is from hand to mouth,” said Gerald, with a yawn. “If I went in for sentiment, which I don’t, it would be for Fiddler’s Ranch; though it is now a great city called Violinia, with everything like everything else everywhere.”