"Milly said to tell you that we had a fire."
"A real fire, Pussy? I didn't know that there was one in the world."
He came down again to the first floor. Pussy was waiting--a freckled dot
of a child tied up in a man's coat.
The fire was in a small round stove. On top of the stove something was
boiling. The room was neat but bare, the stove, a table, and three
chairs its only furnishing. In a room beyond were two beds covered with
patchwork quilts.
On the table was a tree. It was a Christmas tree--just a branch of pine
and some cheap spangly things. The mother of the children sewed all day
and late into the night. She had worked a little longer each night for a
month that the children might have the tree.
There was no light in the room but that of a small and smoky lamp.