But I did not mind that in the least; for when I glided out after him
into the hall, I was well repaid for my trouble, by hearing his mother
say to him: 'Why, Charlie, my dear, you look ever so much better since
I left you!' At that moment I slipped through the closing door, and as
I ran across the snow, I heard the mother say: 'What shadow can that be,
passing so quickly?' And Charlie answered with a merry laugh: 'Oh!
mamma, I suppose it must be the funny shadow that has been playing such
games with me, all the time you were out.' As soon as the door was shut,
I crept along the wall, and looked in at the dining-room window. And I
heard his mamma say, as she led him into the room: 'What an imagination
the boy has!' Ha! ha! ha! Then she looked at him very earnestly for a
minute, and the tears came in her eyes; and as she stooped down over
him, I heard the sounds of a mingling kiss and sob.'"
* * * * *
"Ah, I thought so!" cried Adela, who espied, peeping, that I had this
last tale on a separate slip of paper--"I thought so! That is yours,
Mr. Armstrong, and not uncle's at all. He stole it out of your sermon."
"You are excessively troublesome to-night, Adela," I rejoined. "But I
confess the theft."
"He had quite a right to take what I had done with, Miss Cathcart," said
the curate; and once more I resumed.
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