But the echoes persisted in contradicting his recollection of their lively music. Up and down--sad and slow--they wandered; never drowned for a moment, while their monotonous beat was rendered more mournful by the hurried, ceaseless tramp of pleasure-seekers upon the pavement without. He wished that he had spoken a kindly word to the downcast innocents, instead of the silent salute he had vouchsafed to their mutely-offered lips. Perhaps they were not asleep yet! His wife was still with the twins, in the bedroom overhead, for he heard her walking about the floor, preparing, as he knew, to leave them for the night. He could slip up noiselessly to the small chamber adjoining, and solace his uneasy spirit by a loving “good-night,” that should dry Nettie’s eyes, if they were wet, and comfort Ally’s disappointed soul, while the partner of his bosom would be none the wiser for it.
Mrs. Dryden did not allow the attendance of a nursery-maid to her elder children in the evening. For more than a year they had undressed themselves and retired to their respective cots, without noise or complaint, leaving nothing for mother or servant to do, but to look in, a few minutes later, and extinguish the gas. This had been done by Ellen, the chamber-maid, before she went down to her own tea; but the moonlight, streaming through the window-curtain, showed to the father, as he stood without the partly-open door, the two white beds in opposite corners of the room, and the forms that ought to have been snugly laid under the blankets. Instead of this, they were raised upon their elbows to a half-sitting posture, and the low hum of their earnest voices arrested the spectator upon the threshold.
“I wonder if Papa and Mamma ever were a little boy and girl!” said Master Ally, in a doleful key. “If they were, I guess they have forgotten how they used to feel. I could have cried right out, to-day, at school, when the boys were all talking about Christmas gifts and what they expected to get. You ought to have seen them stare at me when they asked me what I thought I should have, and I said that we didn’t keep Christmas at our house, and that I had never hung up my stockings but once, and that was when I was at my aunt’s! And one boy asked me if my father and mother were dead. And when I said ‘No,’ another fellow called out, as rude as could be--‘I guess they don’t care much about you!’ I tell you, Nettie, it makes a fellow feel real bad!”