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I'd sooner our chiefs down East had kept that young man. The job's not soft enough for him. However, I s'pose he lighted the lamp across the bridge?" "Willis has friends," Kemp remarked meaningly, and indicated a reflection behind the trees. "The lamp's burning." Lister glanced at the trembling light. "I expect it's good enough for the engineer, but the flame's not steady.
I only gave you eighteen cents and it was to buy cereal with." "Cereal?" considered Flame. "Oh that's all right," she glowed suddenly. "I've paid cash for the telephoning and charged the cereal." With a swallow faintly guttural Flame's Mother hung up the receiver. "Dogs do not have butlers," she persisted unshakenly. She was perfectly right. They did not, it seemed.
"Do you?" demanded his wife a bit pointedly. "Honk-honk!" screamed the motor at the door. "Oh, dear me, whatever in the world shall I do?" cried Flame's Mother. "I'm almost distracted! I'm " "When in Doubt do as the Doubters do," suggested Flame's Father quite genially.
On drawing near the gate his attention was attracted by the sight of one of the bedrooms blinking into a state of illumination. In it stood Grace lighting several candles, her right hand elevating the taper, her left hand on her bosom, her face thoughtfully fixed on each wick as it kindled, as if she saw in every flame's growth the rise of a life to maturity.
As if to prove the truth of what she said, with a burst almost like that of flame's leap along a powder-line, the fire caught one resinous pine-top after another with a crackling rush which was not only fearfully apparent to the eye, but also ominously audible.
As Flame's hands dropped from the piano the unmistakable creak of red wheels sounded on the frozen driveway just outside. No one but "Bertrand the Lay Reader" drove a buggy with red wheels! To the infinite scandalization of the Parish no one but "Bertrand the Lay Reader" drove a buggy with red wheels! Fleet steps sounded suddenly on the path! Startled fists beat furiously on the door!
Lasse rose and went up to the bed. "Good-bye, grandmother!" he said, "and a pleasant journey, in case we shouldn't meet again!" Pelle followed him and repeated the words. The old woman looked at them inquiringly, but did not move. Then Lasse gently took her hand, and then Pelle, and they stole out into the other room. "Her flame's burning clear to the end!" said Lasse, when the door was shut.
As though dreaming he were late to church and had forgotten his vestments, Flame's Father reached out nervously and draped a great string of ground-pine stole-like about his neck. "We all," broke in the Master of the House quite irrelevantly, "seem to have experienced a slight twinge of irritability the past few minutes.
Blankly Flame's Father returned the stare. "Oh, p-l-e-a-s-e!" implored Flame. Her face was crinkled like fine crêpe. "Smooth out your nose!" ordered her Mother. On the verge of capitulation the same familiar fear assailed her. "Will you promise not to see the Lay Reader?" she bargained. " Yes'm," said Flame.
Probably her mind had run back nearly thirty years, and she was calculating from the date of this man's father's marriage, which she knew; or from that of his eldest brother's birth, which she also knew. She was not so clear about Irene. At the time of that young lady's first birthday her only one, in fact her close observation of her old flame's family dates was flagging.
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