Mrs. Pendleton,
as she helped Marthy wheel the perambulator over the slippery crossing
and into the front gate.

On the hall table there was a telegram from Oliver, and Virginia tore it
open while her mother and Marthy unfastened the children's wraps.

"He's at the Hotel Bertram," she said joyously, "and he says the
rehearsals are going splendidly."

"Did he mention Harry's birthday?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, trying to hide
the instinctive dread which the sight of a telegram aroused in her.

"He must have forgotten it. Can't you come upstairs to the nursery with
us, mother?"

"No, your father is all alone. I must be getting back," replied Mrs.
Pendleton gently.

An hour or two later, when Virginia sat in her rocking-chair before the
nursery fire, with Harry, worn out with his play and forgetful of the
dignity of his four years, asleep in her lap, she opened the telegram
again and reread it hungrily while the light of love shone in her face.
She knew intuitively that Oliver had sent the telegram because he had
not written--and would not write, probably, until he had finished with
the hardest work of his play. It was an easy thing to do--it took
considerably less of his time than a letter would have done; but she had
inherited from her mother the sentimental vision of life which
unconsciously magnifies the meaning of trivial attentions. She looked
through her emotions as through a prism on the simple fact of his
telegraphing, and it became immediately transfigured. How dear it was of
him to realize that she would be anxious until she heard from him! How
lonely he must be all by himself in that great city! How much he must
have wanted to be with Harry on his birthday! Sitting there in the
fire-lit nursery, her heart sent out waves of love and sympathy to him
across the distance and the twilight. On the rug at her feet Lucy rocked
in her little chair, crooning to her doll with the beginnings of the
mother instinct already softening her voice, and in the adjoining room
Jenny lay asleep in her crib while the faithful Marthy watched by her
side. Beyond the window a fine icy rain had begun to fall, and down the
long street she could see the lamps flickering in revolving circles of
frost. In the midst of the frozen streets, that little centre of red
firelight separated her as completely from the other twenty-one thousand
human beings among whom she lived as did the glow of personal joy that
suffused her thoughts. From the d