Promise not to worry, mama."
Twice in the night Deleah slipped from her own warm bed to stand, an
anxious little figure, shivering in her nightgown, her dark curls
streaming down her back, a suspensive ear to the keyhole of her mother's
door. People fainted because they had heart disease. Of heart disease they
also died. She dared not go in, because papa was there, but waited,
trembling with cold and fear, until her mother's sigh reassured her.
In the morning the mistress of the house came down with a pale face and
dark rings about her deeply-set large eyes. She could not smile, she could
not eat, she hardly spoke, but she was better, she said.
The children would have to know; but she could not bring herself to tell
them. That their father was not in the house they did not perceive, but
put down his absence from the breakfast-table to the fact that he had
over-slept himself.
A great fire blazed on the hearth. A stack of muffins was being kept warm
in a silver dish on a brass stand before it. Fish, and broiled kidneys
were on the table; a ham, and a brawn, and a glazed tongue on the
sideboard. Mrs. Day always drank coffee at her breakfast, Deleah liked
cocoa, the rest took tea; all three were served.
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