He lived intensely in the present
hour, and was more than content that his adopted sister was quite to his
taste.
"Well, Amy," said Mr. Clifford, benignantly, "you seem to have stepped in
among us as if there had always been a niche waiting for you, and I think
that, after you have broken bread with us, and have had a quiet sleep
under the old roof, you will feel at home. Come, I'm going to take you
out to supper to-night, and, Burt, do you be as gallant to your mother."
The young fellow made them all laugh by imitating his father's old-style
courtesy; and a happy circle of faces gathered around the board in the
cheerful supper-room, to which a profuse decoration of evergreens gave a
delightfully aromatic odor. Mr. Clifford's "grace" was not a formal
mumble, but a grateful acknowledgment of the source from which, as he
truly believed, had flowed all the good that had blessed their life; and
then followed the genial, unrestrained table-talk of a household that, as
yet, possessed no closeted skeleton. The orphan sat among them, and her
mourning weeds spoke of a great and recent sorrow, which might have been
desolation, but already her kindling eyes and flushed cheeks proved that
this strong, bright current of family life would have the power to carry
her forward to a new, spring-like experience. To her foreign-bred eyes
there was an abundance of novelty in this American home, but it was like
the strangeness of heaven to the poor girl, who for months had been so
sad and almost despairing.
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