If Dick thought you
could laugh!' She goes to the little table. 'I came back for these
slips of paper.' She lifts them and presses them to her breast. 'These
precious slips of paper!'
Dick was always a curious boy, and forgetting that she cannot hear him,
he blurts out, 'How do you mean, mother? Why are they precious?'
Mr. Don forgets also and looks to her for an answer.
'What is it, Robert?'
'Didn't you--hear anything, Grace?'
'No. Perhaps Laura was calling; I left her on the stair.'
'I wish,' Mr. Don is fighting for Dick now, 'I wish Laura would come
back and say good-night to me.'
'I daresay she will.'
'And,' valiantly, 'if she could be--rather brighter, Grace.'
'Robert!'
'I think Dick would like it.'
Her fine eyes reproach him mutely, but she says, ever forgiving, 'Is
that how you look at it, Robert? Very well, laugh your fill--if you can.
But if Dick were to appear before me to-night----'
In his distress Mr. Don cries aloud to the figure by the fire, 'Dick, if
you can appear to your mother, do it.'
There is a pause in which anything may happen, but nothing happens.
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