"There is no light."
"You would do better to go to bed."
"Mamma's coming."
"She will hardly come now, Granny."
"She's coming."
A bell rang; and Addie started.
"She's coming," repeated the old woman.
Addie went downstairs and opened the door. It was Constance, with a cab, in the driving snow.
"Mamma! . . ."
"I've come. . . . I left the doctor and Papa . . . with Aunt Adeline. . . ."
"Grandmamma is expecting you . . ."
They went in. And it semed to Constance as though, after the whiteness outside and all the despair yonder, she saw it snowing here, inside the house, snowing black, with dark, black snow-flakes, inside the hall, inside the rooms; and the face of her mother, sitting beside the candle, stared at her, like a ghost, with glassy eyes. . . .
"Mamma! . . ."
"Constance, there's nothing wrong . . . with Gerrit?"
"No, oh no, Mamma!"
"I'm glad, I'm glad, dear. And there's nothing wrong . . . with Ernst either?"
"No, oh no, Mamma!"
"So there's nothing wrong with any of them?"
"No, they're all well, Mamma!"
