Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/140

The Loom of Destiny "You have not kissed me to-night, darling!' she said. Tiddlywinks was silent. "Will you not kiss mamma, dear?" she asked, as she came over to where he stood, defiant, yet miserable, looking down stolidly at the pattern in the carpet.

"You may easily find a too willing substitute," murmured the man at the table. Tiddlywink's mother turned pale, and raised her finger at the man in a frightened way.

"Very well, Tiddlywinks," she said with a sigh, "I shall not make you do so."

When the child had gone to bed with a swelling heart, she sat thinking for a long time, until the man's voice roused her and they went into the library for coffee.

Tiddlywinks' mother sang that evening as she had never sung before. The lonely child in his bed heard her, crept down the stairs, and sat for a long time on the bottom step, listening. Then the music seemed to charm him, luring him through the doorway, and he stood there in the shadow, a motionless little bare-footed figure in white.

"She must be one of the angels, after all," 128