Page:The Yellow Book - 06.djvu/128

 story at times, and names bothered him; sometimes, too, the tears welled up and his lips trembled under his old grey moustache, and his hand shook as he rubbed his glasses, and though the fires had not long begun nor the chestnut roasters taken up their winter places, and it seemed only a few weeks back that delicate spirals of smoke rose up from all the squares, with a pungent smell of burning leaves—surest London token of the coming of the fall—the old man sat huddled over the fire. His little friend, who had seen most of the serious sides of life, observed him anxiously as she whispered good-bye with her good-night."

"For I am going to Aunt Sarah's for a week, and I wish I wasn't going, Captain dear, but I'll write to you. I've filled the inkpot fresh and put a hassock for your feet, and told Bessie to mind your fire, and when I come back you'll read me all you have written in the book."

The old man, seeing her face clouded, promised her with forced gaiety to work like a Trojan, and kissed her little red hand with a touch of old-time grace.

Five days later Jeanet got a shakily written letter in reply to hers, with a comical little sketch of the Captain surrounded by icebergs, with icicles hanging from his beard; he wrote that he missed her, felt seedy, but to-morrow surely he would be better, and then he would write. Jeanet declared resolutely she must go home, and the next day when the shadows were gathering thickly and the lamplighter trotted from street to street, and the tinkle of the muffin bell told the hour of tea, the little maid surprised her family by her advent:

"How is the Captain?" was her first question.

"Indeed he's only middlin'. Bessy took him some gruel at dinner-time and made up the fire, for he said he was going to write