and every fire blazing.” The girl sprang to her feet and stepped nearer the hearth. She would be less nervous, she thought, if she moved about, and then the warmth of the fire was somehow reassuring. “Please let me light them all, Cousin Annie,” she pleaded, reaching out her hand toward a cluster in an old-fashioned candelabra—“and if there aren’t enough I’ll get more from Margaret.”
“No, no—one will do. It is an old custom of mine; I’ve done it for twenty years.”
“But don’t you love Christmas?” Kate argued, her nervousness increasing. The ghostly light and the note of pain in her companion’s voice were strangely affecting.
The Little Gray Lady leaned forward in her chair and looked long and steadily at the heap of smouldering ashes; then she answered slowly, each word vibrating with the memory of some hidden sorrow: “I’ve had mine, dearie.”
“But you can have some more,” urged Kate.
“Not like those that have gone before, dearie—no, not like those.”
Something in the tones of her voice and quick droop of the dear head stirred the girl to her depths. Sinking to her knees she hid her face in the Little Lady’s lap.
“And you sit here in the dark with only one candle?” she whispered.
“Yes, always,” she answered, her fingers stroking the fair hair. “I can see those I have loved better in the dark. Sometimes the room is full of people; I have often to strain my eyes to assure myself that the door is really shut. All sorts of people come—the girls and boys I knew when I was young. Some are dead; some are far away; some so near that should I open the window and shout their names many of them could hear. There are fewer above ground every year—but I welcome all who come. It’s the old maid’s hour, you know—this twilight hour. The wives are making ready the supper; the children are romping; lovers are together in the corner where they can whisper and not be overheard. But none of this disturbs me—no big man bursts in, letting in the cold. I have my chair, my candle, my thoughts, and my fire. When you get to be my age, Kate, and live alone—and you might, dearie, if Mark should leave you—you will love these twilight hours, too.”
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