They laid aside their instruments and gathered round their father.
Graceful, brown-eyed Celia sat down beside him; Charlotte's curly black
hair mingled with his heavy iron-gray locks as she perched upon the arm
of his chair, her scarlet flannel arm under his head. The youngest boy,
Justin, threw himself flat on the hearth-rug, chin propped on elbow,
watching the fire; sixteen-year-old Jeff helped himself to a low stool,
clasping long arms about long legs as his knees approached his head in
this posture; and the eldest son, pausing, drew up a chair and sat down
to face the group.
"Now for it," he said. "It looks serious--a consultation of the whole.
Mayn't we have mother to back us?"
"I've sent mother to bed," Mr. Birch explained. "She wanted to come down
to hear you play, but I wouldn't let her. And indeed there are
moments--" He glanced quizzically at his eldest son.
"Yes, sir," Lansing responded, promptly. "There are moments when the
furnace pipes convey up-stairs as much din as she can bear."
Mr. Birch sat looking thoughtfully into the fire for a minute or two.
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