Her heart swelled with something she had been too tired to feel for a long while. She hugged them to her tight—each in turn, Roddie, Laetitia, Phillipher children! She had forgotten they were so dear to her—that she was so dear to them.
Later they all sat down together on the couch in the dining-room; Phillip, grown rosy and almost round, in her lap; Roddie on one side of her, straighter and manlier somehow with his close haircut; and Laetitia, on the other, with the new, dear freckles on her nose. And no powder at all! Nor even the smell of it! They all had such long stories to tell, that it was nearly ten o'clock before Sheilah even thought of the time, or of the fact that she and Felix had had no supper. They all five foraged in the refrigerator. How it cried out for her attention! And other things too! She was eager to get at them. Duties that had seemed like bars to imprison her a few weeks ago, were now opportunities—strings of a harp upon which to play, and show her skill.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when Sheilah heard Phillip's prayers that night. After she rose from the bedside she crossed the room to the window ta lower the upper sash. As she raised the window-shade, she was struck by the sight of a great big moon, peering at her from over the roof of the next apartment house. She peered back at it defiantly. She wasn't afraid now. She hadn't thought of Roger Dallinger
