IVThe children awakened her by their delighted cooing and kissing. It was a great event, this waking to find mamma in their bed. It was hardly light, of a dull gray morning; and with the children tumbling about over her, feeling the pressure of the warm little hands and soft lips, she went over the whole situation again, and at last settled upon her action.
She rose, shook down the coal in the stove in the sitting-room, and started a fire in the kitchen; then she dressed the children by the coal-burner. The elder of them, as soon as dressed, ran in to wake "Poppa" while the mother went about breakfast-getting.
Sanford came out of his bedroom unwontedly gloomy, greeting the children in a subdued manner. He shivered as he sat by the fire and stirred the stove as if he thought the room was
