Wild tales came to him at times of this youngest and most gifted of his
children--tales of intemperate living interlarded with occasional tales
of brilliant surgical achievement on the staff of St. Michael's. For the
old Doctor had guided the steps of his youngest son to the paths of
medicine with a great hope, long abandoned.
Ah--well! The Doctor sighed, abruptly turning his thoughts to Madge and
Roger. They at least should know the heart-glow of a real Christmas! A
masquerade party of his neighbors Christmas eve, perhaps, such as Aunt
Ellen had suggested, and a Yule-log--but now it was, in the midst of his
Christmas plans, that a daring notion flashed temptingly through the
Doctor's head, was banished with a shrug and flashed again, whereupon
with his splendid capacity for prompt decision, the Doctor suddenly
wheeled old Billy about and went sleighing in considerable excitement
into the village whence a host of night-telegrams went singing over the
busy wires to startle eventually a slumbering conscience or so. And
presently when the Doctor drew up with a flourish before the lonely
little house among the forest pines, his earlier depression had
vanished.
So with a prodigious stamping of snow from his feet and a cheerful wave
of his mittened hand to the boy by the window, the Doctor bustled
cheerily indoors and with kindly eyes averted from the single tell-tale
sauce-pan upon the fire, over which Madge Hildreth had bent with sudden
color, fell to bustling about with a queer lump in his throat and
talking ambiguously of Aunt Ellen's Christmas orders, painfully
conscious that the girl's dark face had grown pitifully white and tense
and that Roger's wan little face was glowing.
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