“He just said that he had a nap, Lyd, I think he didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Oh, he got a good nap in,” Lydia admitted, pacified, “if you’re really going to take him to-night, I’ve laid out his clean things.”

“I saw them on the bed, Lyd—­you’re a darling!”

“Am I going?” Teddy asked, with a bounce.

“Is Aunt Sally going to take the children?” Martie temporized.  But Teddy knew from her tone that he was safe.  Indeed, his mother loved the realization that she was his court of last appeal, that it was to her memory of authority abused that his happiness was entrusted.  It was her joy to explain, to adjust, to reconcile, the little elements of his life.  She taught him the rules of simplicity and industry and service as another mother might have taught him his multiplication table.  Teddy might have poverty and discouragement to face some day, but life could never be all dark to him while his mother interpreted it.

She took him upstairs now, to dress for the great occasion of the Sodality Christmas tree, and dressed herself, prettily, as well.  But before she turned out the gas, and followed the galloping small boy downstairs, she opened her bureau drawer.

And again the slim book was in her hands, and again her dazzled eyes were reading the few words that gave her new proof that John had not forgotten.

For a few minutes she stood dreaming; dreaming of the old boarding-house, and the little furniture clerk with his eager, faun-like smile.  And for the first time she let her fancy play with the thought of what life might be for the woman John Dryden loved.

But she put the book and the thought quickly away, her cheeks burning, and went down to the homely, inviting odours of supper, of Pauline’s creamed salmon and fluffy rolls.  Her father sat beside the fire, in a sort of doze, his long, lean hands idly locked, his glasses pushed up on his lead-coloured forehead.

Martie kissed him, catching the old faint unpleasant smell of breath and moustache as she did so, helped him to the table, and tied Teddy’s napkin under the child’s round, firm chin.  She talked of anything and everything, of Christmas surprises, and Christmas duties—­

And all the while her heart sang.  When with Teddy on one side, and Lydia leaning on the free arm, she was walking through the winter darkness her feet wanted to dance on the cold, hard earth.

“It’s Christmas—­Christmas—­Christmas!” she laughed, when the little boy commented upon her gaiety.  Lydia found the usual damper for her mood.

“Very different for you from last Christmas, poor Mart!” she observed, with a long sigh.

Martie was sobered.  They went into the church for a moment’s prayer, and Teddy wriggled against her in the dark, and managed to get a little arm about her neck, for he knew that she was crying.  The revulsion had come, and Martie, tears running down her face in the darkness, was only a lonely woman again, unsuccessful, worried, trapped in a dull little village, missing her baby!