and she laughed back, then urged him into the hall, and, slipping ahead,
led the way down-stairs. At the first landing, which brought them into
full view of the lower hall, he paused, possessed with the mad desire to
run away and hide, for at the foot of the stairway stood the entire
flock of old ladies. Twenty-nine pairs of eyes were lifted to him and
Angy, twenty-nine pairs of lips were smiling at them. To the end of his
days Abraham remembered those smiles. Reassuring, unselfish, and tender,
they made the old man's heart swell, his emotions go warring together.

He wondered, was grateful, yet he grew more confused and afraid. He
stared amazed at Angeline, who seemed the embodiment of self-possession,
lifting her dainty, proud little gray head higher and higher. She turned
to Abraham with a protecting, motherly little gesture of command for him
to follow, and marched gallantly on down the stairs. Humbly, trembling
at the knees, he came with gingerly steps after the little old wife. How
unworthy he was of her now! How unworthy he had always been, yet never
realized to the full until this moment. He knew what those smiles meant,
he told himself, watching the uplifted faces; they were to soothe his
sense of shame and humiliation, to touch with rose this dull gray color
of the culmination of his failures. He passed his hand over his eyes,
fiercely praying that the tears might not come to add to his disgrace.

And all the while brave little Angy kept smiling, until with a truly
glad leap of the heart she caught sight of a blue ribbon painted in gold
shining on the breast of each one of the twenty-nine women. A pale blue
ribbon painted in gold with--yes, peering her eyes she discovered that
it was the word "WELCOME!" The forced smile vanished from Angeline's
face. Her eyes grew wet, her cheek white. Her proud figure shrank. She
turned and looked back at her husband. Not for one instant did she
appropriate the compliment to herself. "This is for _you_!" her spirit