The candle was lighted, and its dim light fell upon that strange group
gathered there at midnight, and looking into each other's faces with a
wistful questioning as to what it all portended.
"It is very cold; make more fire," Richard said, shivering, as the sleet
came driving against the window; and in an instant all the morning
kindlings were thrust into the stove, which roared and crackled, and
hissed, and diffused a sense of warmth and comfort through the
shadowy room.
"What is it, Richard? What makes you so white and queer?" his mother
asked, trying to pull on her stockings, and in her trepidation jamming
her toes into the heel, and drawing her shoe over the bungle thus made
at the bottom of her foot.
"Ethie was not there, and has not been since the night I left. She sold
her piano, and took the money, and her trunk, and her clothes, and went
to visit Mrs. Amsden."
This was Richard's explanation, which Andy thought a mighty funny reason
for his brother's coming at midnight, and frightening them so terribly.
But his mother saw things differently. She knew there was something
underlying all this--something which would require all her skill and
energy to meet--and her face was almost as white as Richard's as she
asked, "Why do you think she has gone to Mrs.
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