Chapter IV: Part 4

"Peggy Raymond, I never thought you could be so stupid." Ruth’s voice told of exasperation. "Listen! This letter is written by a girl named Maud, and Graham never mentioned such a person to any of us. He has lots of girl friends, like all college boys, and their pictures are all around his room, and I know the names of every single one. But he never has said a word about Maud."

Peggy shook her head helplessly, unable to suggest any satisfactory explanation for Graham’s singular omission. Ruth continued, gradually losing her self-control, as she summed up the evidence against the brother she adored.

"That would be queer, Peggy, and it would make me feel dreadfully hurt, but, of course, Graham isn’t obliged to tell me about his friends unless he chooses to. That isn’t the worst part. You see he’s giving her presents, things that cost a lot. It was a pendant this week, and a brooch last, and now she’s hinting for a ring."

"Yes, he must think a great deal of her," Peggy acknowledged gravely.

"But Graham hasn’t any money of his own. Father’s doing it all, and the worst of it is, that Graham’s expenses are so heavy this year that father is having a real hard time. He spoke to Graham about it not a week ago, and asked him to be as careful as he could, and Graham talked so beautifully about it, and he wanted to give up lots of things, and father said no, and that he’d get hold of the money somehow. And after all that, Graham has bought jewelry for this Maud."

Peggy made no effort to check her friend’s wild outburst of weeping. Under the circumstances it would do Ruth good to cry. She looked with a sense of shrinking disgust at the letter on the floor, as if it had been some sort of loathsome creature. "How could he?" she said to herself, as Graham’s frank, handsome face flashed out on the screen of her memory. Only that morning she had seen Graham and his father pass. The older man was listening to something the younger was saying, smiling a little, and the look he bent upon his son was full of trust and confidence. And all the time Graham had been deceiving him, taking the money which meant sacrifices in the home, to buy costly presents for a girl whose name he had never mentioned to his sister. It was no wonder that Ruth cried. Sunny Peggy felt sick and disillusioned.

The door-knob rattled. "It’s me!" said a voice, which sounded very much as if the three caramels were simultaneously occupying one small mouth.

"Run along, Dorothy!" Peggy was too absorbed in the problem confronting her to make her request tactful. She went over to Ruth, who was making a brave struggle to regain her self-control, and possessing herself of the limp hand, stroked it tenderly. Then Peggy’s instinct to make excuses for everybody, led her to say, "After all, perhaps we’re making a mountain out of a mole-hill."

"Mole-hill!" exclaimed Ruth indignantly. "How you can call it a mole-hill for Graham to take his father’s money and pretend it’s for things at college when all the time--"

"O, yes, I know. But there’s a chance of a mistake," Peggy protested, "I don’t suppose you’ve talked with Graham about it?"

"Goodness, no! I went up to his room this morning to do the work and this letter lay on the floor, not even in the envelope."

"That doesn’t look as if he were ashamed of it," Peggy exclaimed triumphantly.

"O, that’s Graham all over. No matter what he did, he’d be too careless to cover his tracks. I picked it up and looked at it to see if it was meant to be thrown away or not, and then my eye caught that about the pendant, and I simply couldn’t stop. And after I saw what it meant it seemed to me that I should die if I didn’t tell somebody."

"But, Ruth," Peggy protested, alarmed, "you surely are going to talk to Graham about it. You can’t mean to let it go on, and not give him a chance to explain or anything."

Poor Ruth hid her face in her hands.

"O, Peggy!" she cried in a stifled voice, "if I thought he could explain, I’d be only too glad to give him the chance. But you know yourself he can’t. And how can I bear to tell him that I know all about it. If it was anything else, I wouldn’t feel so," she added despairingly. "But think, Peggy, of telling your brother that you know he has been cheating your father, and being mean and underhanded, all the time that he talked so beautifully about how grateful he was for what had been done for him, and how hard he was going to try to make us all proud of him."

It was a black picture. "Then, I suppose," said Peggy, after a long pause, "that you’ll tell your father."

"Father!" Ruth spoke the word with a little protesting cry. "Why, it would kill father to know such a thing about Graham. He never could bear it."

Peggy hesitated. Strong as her sympathy was for Ruth, her sturdy common sense refused to take her friend’s view of the case.

"Ruth, this is too serious a thing for two girls like us to keep to ourselves. Somebody’s got to know, somebody who’ll understand what to do."

Ruth sprang to her feet. "You don’t mean that you’ll tell. Peggy, you couldn’t be so--so dishonorable as to tell. I came to you because I had to confide in somebody. And, now, if I can’t trust you--"

"O, good gracious!" exclaimed Peggy with an irritation of which she was immediately ashamed. "Of course I’m not going to tell. But _you_ are. Ruth, you must."

Again and again they went over the ground, Peggy coaxing, persuading, trying vainly to bring her friend’s resolution to the sticking point, while Ruth squirmed and evaded and protested, and even accused Peggy of heartlessness.

"I tell you it would kill father. He’s wrapped up in Graham. If he found out that he had tricked and cheated him he’d never have another happy minute."

"Your mother, then."

"Mother! Why, that would be worse, if anything could be worse. Her heart isn’t strong, you know. The doctor says we must be careful about shocks--"

"Then, Ruth Wylie, there’s no two ways about it. You’ve got to pluck up your courage and have it out with Graham."

It was in the discussion of this point that Peggy was accused of heartlessness, a most unjust charge, for at the moment her heart was aching for poor Ruth in her misery.

"You don’t understand!" Ruth insisted. "You _can’t_ understand. Your brother is younger than you are, but if he were older, and you’d always looked up to him, and thought he was perfectly splendid, and felt sorry for other girls with ordinary brothers, just think what it would be like to face him and tell him that you’d found him out, and that he was mean and contemptible. O, it don’t seem as if I could be talking about Graham. O, Peggy, why did I ever read that letter?"

Peggy temporarily gave up the effort to bring Ruth to a realizing sense of her responsibility in the matter, and set herself to soothe her. Between indignation on her father’s account, and grief over the discovery of the glaring weakness in the brother, whom she had been accustomed to set on a pedestal, poor Ruth’s nerves were sadly unstrung. Peggy coaxed her to lie down upon the bed, and stroked her burning forehead with sympathetic fingers, cooing over her like a dove over its nestlings. All that was sweet and womanly in Peggy responded to the challenge of suffering, and her fingers had the deft tenderness which characterizes the born nurse, and is not always secured by a course of training in the hospitals.

She was just congratulating herself that Ruth’s tense muscles were relaxing somewhat, and that her breathing was less hurried and irregular, when a crash in the hall, followed by staccato screams, sent her flying to the door. Most unexpectedly she found her exit barred by a solid oak table and, when she pushed that impatiently aside, she stumbled over the upturned rockers of Dorothy’s little red chair. Dorothy herself was somewhere on the stairs, screaming lustily, while Mrs. Raymond and Sally were bending over her, imploring her to tell them where she was hurt.

"What is it? What has happened?" shrieked Peggy, plunging down the stairs, forgetful of everything except the possibility that Dorothy was seriously injured.

No one had time to explain, but gradually from scraps of information let fall, aided by her own intuition, Peggy reached an understanding of the catastrophe. Dorothy, aggrieved by the turning of the key in the lock, had pushed a table in front of Peggy’s door, and placed her own small rocking-chair on top, intending from this vantage ground to make a dramatic entrance through the transom. The rocking-chair had frustrated this maneuvre by swaying at the wrong moment, and Dorothy had plunged over the banisters while the chair had toppled to the floor with a crash worthy a more imposing piece of furniture.

"Can you move your arms and legs, dear? Let Grandma see you kick?" pleaded Mrs. Raymond, running her fingers anxiously over Dorothy’s plump little body in search of broken bones.

"It’s her insides that are hurt, most like. My ma had a cousin who got his insides hurt in a fall, and for seventeen years he never left his bed." Sally, who had a taste for the ghastly, contributed this information, and would have gone on to give the harrowing details had she not perceived that no one was paying any attention to her.

Dorothy’s screams were gradually subsiding into gasping sobs. She turned her pathetic, tear-stained little face toward Peggy, who crouched on the stairs beside her, a conscience-stricken heap, repeating miserably, "O, Dorothy, where does it hurt, darling?"

"I--I swallowed ’em," Dorothy volunteered at last, and burst into fresh lamentations.

"Swallowed what, dear?"

"The car’mels. I swallowed ’em quick. I didn’t have time to eat ’em."

Peggy and her mother exchanged wide-eyed glances.

"Don’t mind about that, dear," coaxed Peggy. "By and by, when you feel better, I’ll make you some more candy."

Dorothy’s sobs ceased with an abruptness that was uncanny. "Feel better now," she said.

"But where does it hurt, Dorothy?"

"Don’t hurt. But I like butter-scotch better’n car’mels."

"You shall have butter-scotch, you precious. But where--" Peggy’s solicitous inquiries were interrupted by Dorothy’s clapping her hands and beginning to frisk about in a manner which set at ease conclusively any fear as to broken bones.

"It’s struck into her brains most like," said Sally hopefully. "I knowed an idget boy onct. It was a fall striking into his brains that ailed him."

Mrs. Raymond and Peggy were too accustomed to Sally’s doleful prophecies to be cast down. They heaved sighs of relief, exchanged smiles, and Peggy flew to her room to get her apron. At the head of the stairs she encountered Ruth, a red-eyed, drooping figure, and Peggy’s conscience reproached her that in her own alarm and relief, she had momentarily forgotten her friend’s greater cause for anxiety.

"You see," she whispered, pausing for a moment, "Sometimes things turn out better than you think they will. I was almost sure that Dorothy was dreadfully hurt, you know." But Ruth only shook her head and made the answer characteristic of people in trouble, who are all likely to think their own especial load unlike any other burden.

"But this is different."

*CHAPTER XI*

*CHRISTMAS PREPARATIONS*

Peggy’s door was locked again, but this time it was not Ruth’s fault. Peggy would have said, if questioned, that she had "troubles of her own," and the chances are that it would not have occurred to her that there was anything incongruous in the selection of such a phrase to describe her Christmas preparations.

The little bed-room, usually a model of exquisite neatness, in spite of its simplicity, now suggested a compromise between a church fair and a rummage sale. Articles in various stages of completion were draped over the furniture, or hung on door-knobs. The bed was piled so deep that often when bed-time approached, Peggy was tempted to take to her easy-chair for the night, for what of the night was left, that is to say, for Peggy was infringing sadly on those hours warranted to make one healthy and wealthy and wise, if properly observed. Mrs. Raymond was uneasy when she saw the gleam of light through the transom long after midnight, but Peggy met all remonstrances with the plead, "O, please don’t say anything, mother, till Christmas is over. You know I’ve got to finish."

When Dorothy rattled the door-knob this particular afternoon, Peggy’s start was suggestive of over-strained nerves. Her voice was unnaturally sharp as she demanded, "who’s there?"

"Me."

"You know you can’t come in, Dorothy. Run away and play."

The knob rattled again. It was not an aggressively loud sound, but Peggy was just tired enough to find it unendurable. Her lips tightened.

"Dorothy, will you stop that noise? This minute!"

Surprise kept Dorothy motionless for almost thirty seconds. "What you doing?" she asked, after that amazing pause, her rosy lips close to the key-hole, her voice persuasive.

"I’m making something you can’t see. Please don’t bother." Peggy jerked her thread savagely. She was, as a matter of fact, hemstitching the little petticoat of the doll she was dressing for Dorothy. She had laughed when her mother suggested that it was hardly worth while to take so much pains. "A strip of embroidery gathered and put in a band would please the child just as well. She isn’t old enough to appreciate the work you are putting into these dainty little garments."

"Work! I don’t call it work. It’s just fun," said Peggy blithely. "And it’s such a tiny way round a doll’s petticoat, mother, that it won’t take any time to speak of." There would have been time enough if there had not been so many things of the same kind; trifles demanding little time when taken separately, but together filling to overflowing Peggy’s hours of leisure, and infringing on the time she needed for recreation and sleep. She thought of them with a sense of nervous apprehension which was far removed from anything festive. There were two of the sweet peas on her mother’s centrepiece not finished yet, and those sweet peas took so long.

"I must finish Aunt Rachel’s bureau scarf to-night," Peggy thought. "I’ve got to allow for the mails being slow. Perhaps I’d better leave this till that is done, for I can finish the doll the very last thing." She tucked the petticoat out of sight, and produced the bureau scarf from under a rainbow litter of Dresden ribbon, scraps of silk, and odds and ends of lace, all of which Peggy designed for especial use.

"Next year," thought Peggy, frantically attacking the bureau scarf, "I’m going to begin my Christmas presents New Year’s afternoon. Perhaps if I start the first of January and keep right at it through the year--Why, what’s that?"

There was a sound in the hall, a choked, low, pitiful sound that seemed startlingly out of place with Christmas near. The bureau scarf dropped to the floor. The spool of thread and the thimble made a bee-line to hide themselves under the dresser, as if they both had enough of getting ready for Christmas. Peggy herself lost no time in turning the key and bolting into the hall, where Dorothy a pensive little heap, her face hidden on her knees, was weeping.

Dorothy had a variety of ways of crying. When angry her tears were accompanied by shrill squeals, as pathetic as a fife playing Yankee Doodle. If she hurt herself she was more likely to relieve her feelings by noise than by tears, suggesting those summer showers whose thunder peals and lightning flashes prepare us for a deluge, but which content themselves, after all, with a few scattering drops. These emotional outbreaks on Dorothy’s part Peggy took philosophically. But when she cried softly, hiding the face down which the big tears were coursing, while the sobs shook her little body, then indeed, it was another matter.

"Dorothy!" Peggy cried, dropping down on her knees beside the despondent figure. "Dorothy, what is the matter? What are you crying about?"

"Aunt Peggy." It was a full minute before Dorothy could answer, and then the quiver running through the words pierced Peggy’s heart. "Ain’t Christmas going to be over pretty quick?"

"It comes next week, honey."

"Well, I’ll be glad when it’s gone." A great sob emphasized the statement. "It’s such a horrid time."

"Dorothy!" Peggy was aghast: "You can’t mean that you don’t like Christmas."

"It’s a horrid time," Dorothy repeated, with every indication of sincerity. "Folks lock doors. And then they tell you to go and play, and there ain’t anyfing to play. And there’s nice fings, but you can’t see ’em." She sobbed again as she painted the black picture, and Peggy hastened to explain, "But, darling, you will see them on Christmas day. Think what a good time you will have when you find out all the secrets."

"But I want a good time now," said Dorothy explosively.

For once Peggy had no reply ready. What was there to be said? Of course Dorothy did. Who could reasonably expect this little human thistle-down to fold her hands and wait patiently through weeks of Christmas preparations in which she had no share. Peggy, absorbed in her plans, had found no time for the stories Dorothy loved, for the little after-supper frolics, for candy pulls in the kitchen, for walks over the snow. All these joys had been discontinued with a vague promise of something very nice to happen by and by. What wonder Dorothy was dissatisfied?

"And getting ready for Christmas is almost the nicest part," Peggy thought. "And here I’ve locked my door and shut her out of it. It’s no wonder she thinks Christmas is horrid." She lowered her voice mysteriously. "Dorothy, how would you like to help me make a Jack Horner pie?"

The hands which covered Dorothy’s eyes dropped to her knees. The little face revealed was more suggestive of April than of December, with the wet eyes shining, and the dimples swallowing up stray tear drops. "A Jack Horner pie?" repeated Dorothy in a thrilled whisper.

"Yes."

"Will we put in a fum and pull out a plum?"

"They’ll be funny plums. Come and I’ll show you. But we’ll lock the door, because this is our secret and nobody must know."

Under the bed was a shiny tin milk pan, and rolls of tissue paper, green and red. "Now I’m going to cover this pan with green paper," Peggy explained. "And there’ll be a pasteboard cover, with a big round hole in the middle, and there’s where we will put in our thumbs."

"And cry what a big boy’m I," added Dorothy, hopping on one foot, which with her was an indication of fascinated interest.

"The cover’ll be all fixed with red tissue paper, and, instead of plums, there’ll be little presents inside."

"Is it going on the Christmas tree, Aunt Peggy?" Dorothy squatted beside her aunt, carried away by the enchantment of the plan. And as Peggy looked at the beaming little face the isolation of her previous preparations suddenly seemed selfish.

"No, this isn’t for the tree. It’s going on the table for the Christmas dinner. The presents aren’t nice ones, you know. They’re funny little jokes. Here’s Dick’s present, a queer little make-believe alarm-clock, because he is so slow about getting up in the morning.

"Dick’s a lazy boy to be my uncle," said Dorothy, giggling rapturously. "I guess he’ll be ’shamed when he pulls out his plum."

"There’s a rhyme to go with it, Dorothy. That’s part of the fun. Do you want to hear it?"

Dorothy promptly became a statuette of attention, her hands folded, and her grave face flatteringly expectant, while Peggy read aloud.

"Dick, Dick, the sleepy-head,
Dearly loves his little bed.
Here’s a cure; ’twill work for sure,
Wind it tight. Set it right,
And then go ahead and
Blow out the light.
When morning comes, how the folks will stare,
To go to breakfast and find Dick there."

"That’s poetry," said Dorothy much impressed. "I learned poetry once, all about Tit, Tiny and Tittens. Did you write a poetry plum for me, too, Aunt Peggy?"

"Yes, but I mustn’t read you yours. That’s a surprise, but you can hear grandpa’s. You see, I’m going to give him a pen because he hates to have anybody else use his pens, and Dick’s always doing it." Peggy cleared her throat. "This is grandpa’s poem.

"Now, here’s a pen for the best of men,
And I wish it were purest gold.
It could not write, in a whole long night,
Half the love my heart does hold.
Not for Dick’s abuse, but for father’s use,
Is the pen I here present.
May it long keep bright and continue to write,
As well as the maker meant."

"I’m going to write some poetry, too, for my Christmas presents," said Dorothy, fired to emulation. "I’m going to say,

"This is for Aunt Peggy
Because she’s eggy."

"But I wouldn’t be _eggy_, I hope," exclaimed Peggy, laughing with an abandon rare in the last ten days. "So your poetry wouldn’t fit."

Dorothy’s face fell. "Oh!" she exclaimed, with perhaps a glimmering appreciation of the truth that art is long. "Oh! I didn’t know that poetry had to be true." She gave up her ambition for the time being. "What’s grandma’s poetry, Aunt Peggy?"

Peggy unfolded the slip of paper willingly. She was proud of that attempt.

"We could have a jolly Christmas though old Santa Claus should
go.
We could do without a turkey at a pinch.
And to spare the cheerful holly and the festive mistletoe
Would be rather in the nature of a cinch.
There is only one thing needed, as you’ll readily agree,
One essential that surpasses every other,
For of all absurd endeavors, the most imbecile would be,
Just to try to have Christmas without mother."

"I’m going to have a Christmas ’thout my mover," Dorothy remarked unexpectedly, and Peggy read on rapidly to avoid arguing the point.

"Though the chimney corner stockings should be limp on Christmas
day,
Though the postman on his rounds should fail to ring.
Though of all our friends and neighbors there was not a one to
say,
’Merry Christmas,’ or some other proper thing.
Still I think we could be happy, meet the day with faces bright,
Drawing just a little closer to each other.
But there isn’t one among us who could keep his spirits light,
If we had to spend a Christmas without mother.

Dorothy had heard poetry enough by now. She moved about the room, keeping her plump hands tightly folded, in her effort to comply with Peggy’s caution not to touch. And Peggy, working busily at the construction of the Jack Horner pie, found Dorothy’s presence no drawback to her progress. As a matter of fact there is such a thing as hurrying till one is unable to accomplish anything. The distraction of Peggy’s thoughts by the artless questions and the refreshingly original observations of her small niece was helpful rather than hindering. Her tense nerves relaxed. She laughed out half a dozen times, as if Christmas preparations were a joyful matter instead of soul-straining, nerve-racking ordeal, through which one must pass in order to be worthy of the pleasures beyond.

The Jack Horner pie was finished and tucked out of sight when someone ran up the stairs. "Peggy!" said a breathless voice, outside the door. "Peggy!"

"O Ruth!" Peggy sprang up with hospitable intent, but Dorothy frowned. "We’re pretty busy," she said warningly, and in tones distinctly audible in the hall.

Peggy threw the door ajar, disclosing her friend’s flushed face and heaving chest. "You should put on a coat, instead of running to keep warm," scolded Peggy.

"I’m warm enough." Ruth made an impatient gesture. "Peggy, there’s another."

"What, you don’t mean--"

"Sh!" Ruth drew Peggy out into the hall. "Yes," she replied, nodding mysteriously. "It’s another letter from Maud."

Peggy regarded the square envelope her friend held toward her, and frowned as she drew back. "I don’t want it. I shouldn’t have read the other if I’d understood."

"Peggy, it’s the strangest thing I ever heard of. It’s just like the first."

"Just like the first? I suppose you mean--"

"I mean it’s word for word like the other one. Do you suppose she could have forgotten that she had written him and thanked him over again?"

"If that’s the case she must be a very stupid person," Peggy pronounced judicially. Then curiosity prompted her to ask, "Did Graham leave that lying around too?"

Ruth flushed hotly. "No-o! I took the mail from the postman, and I recognized the monogram. The writing didn’t look natural. She must have used a different pen."

Peggy refused to be diverted by the peculiarities of Maud’s penmanship. "Ruth Wylie!" she demanded indignantly. "Do you mean to tell me that you opened your brother’s letter?"

Ruth squirmed. "Peggy, I just had to know what she said."

"If you wanted to know what she said you should have gone to Graham and asked him. I don’t think anything very good ever comes from doing things in an underhanded way."

"Don’t be cross, Peggy," pleaded Ruth. "I never was so puzzled and troubled in all my life. And I want you to advise me."

"I am advising you. Go to Graham about it. Or else tell your father. That’s the only advice I can give you, and the best you’re likely to get from anybody."

"I can’t do that," Ruth returned despairingly. Resentfully she studied the address on the letter she held. "Christmas is just spoiled for me, Peggy. I can’t think of anything but Maud, and the way Graham is wasting his money, and how deceitful he is, and how poor father would feel if he knew." She swallowed down a sob, and almost remorsefully, Peggy threw her arms about her and hugged her.

"You poor dear thing. I only wish I could help you. But, honestly, Ruth, there is only one way out, and that’s to be frank and above board. Even if Graham has done wrong, silly things, it’s no sign that he can’t be brought to reason. I’d talk to him in a minute, if he were my brother."

Unwelcome advice seldom seems good advice to the recipient. Ruth went away dejected, with the purloined letter in her pocket, but Peggy’s remonstrances had at least one good effect. Ruth resolved that in the future she would read no more of her brother’s letters without his permission. Peggy, standing in the hall, her forehead knotted over her friend’s problem, felt a little twinge of shame as she recalled her varying moods of dejection and irritation during the past week. The finishing of a specified number of gifts at a specified time seemed a trifling cause for disquiet, compared with the burden poor Ruth was carrying.

"Aunt Peggy!" A timid voice spoke from the doorway. "See what I’ve found."

Peggy whirled about. Dorothy stood on the threshold, the doll’s petticoat slipped over her arm. She was studying it speculatively.

"It looks some like a sleeve, Aunt Peggy. A sleeve to a little girl’s dress."

Peggy stifled the irritable exclamation which rose to her lips with such unwonted readiness, pulled the petticoat from Dorothy’s arm and set it upon her curls. "It looks to me now like a cap," she said cheerily. "A real little dunce cap. Look in the glass and see."

Dorothy gazed at her reflection in the mirror, and agreed rapturously. "It looks ’zactly like a dunce cap, Aunt Peggy, and then I’d be the little dunce, wouldn’t I? Or might it be--" she made the suggestion diffidently. "It _might_ be a little teenty petticoat, but I guess it isn’t ’cause then there’d have to be a dolly to go with it. And, anyway, I’m not going to pry, ’cause Christmas is coming."

Peggy laughed. After all it was better to have Dorothy suspect, than to have her weeping as if her heart were broken and wanting Christmas over. She sat down to her bureau scarf with less of the air of a sweat-shop worker, than had characterized her earlier in the day, and as her needle flew, and she abstractedly answered Dorothy’s comments, her thoughts hovered about Ruth, poor Ruth, whose Christmas was spoiled through no fault of her own, whose _joy was poisoned by the bitterest of all disillusions, disappointment in one she had loved and trusted_.

*CHAPTER XII*

*DOROTHY GOES SHOPPING*

"Dorothy, if you don’t keep still, how am I ever going to get your legging on?"

Peggy’s protest paralyzed Dorothy’s dancing feet for exactly fifteen seconds by the clock. It was an occasion for dancing and handclapping and little gurgles of laughter. Dorothy was going down town to do her Christmas shopping, and the friskiest of Santa Claus’ reindeers could not have outdone her in capers.

"I guess I’ll buy grandma some ’fumery," she announced, as her youthful aunt, flushed a becoming pink by the violence of her exertions, struggled with the refractory leggings. "And I’ll buy grandpa a naughty-mobeel, and Dick a candy cane." There was no purpose of partiality in Dorothy’s apportionment of her gifts. She adored her grandparents equally, and really preferred Dick to any other member of the family, since he was the only one of the number who could turn somersaults, an accomplishment Dorothy esteemed above all others. But if an automobile was desirable, so was a candy cane. Dorothy had not reached the point of estimating a gift by its money value.

"Your present is all buyed, Aunt Peggy. Grandma did it, but it’s a secret. Want me to tell you?"

"O, no!" Peggy left off buttoning Dorothy’s coat, and clapped her hands over her ears. "You mustn’t tell secrets," she explained hurriedly. "They’re to be kept till Christmas."

"But I don’t like secrets to keep," protested Dorothy, unconsciously voicing the sentiments, of some older people. "I like ’em to tell: Aunt Peggy your present’s white with pink edges, and--"

The entrance of Mrs. Raymond, with six shining new pennies to add to Dorothy’s Christmas funds, diverted her thoughts from the dangerous topic. If each of the glittering coppers had been a gold piece they could not have been received with greater rapture. Dorothy galloped about the room, planning Christmas benefactions with the reckless liberality of a millionaire, and Peggy was so encouraged by this rapid development of generosity as to suggest, "And you’re going to buy something for the poor children, aren’t you, Dorothy, the children who don’t have any Christmas?"

Dorothy reflected. Suddenly her little face blossomed into a pensive sweetness beautiful to see.

"I know, Aunt Peggy," she exclaimed, with the triumph of one who has found a happy solution to a puzzling problem. "I know. The poor children can have the outside of my nuts."

"The outside! Why, she means the shells, mother. I don’t see how you can laugh." Peggy looked reproachfully at her mother who had suddenly become interested in the view from the window. "Think how terrible it would be if she should grow up selfish."

"She has time to outgrow lots of things, dear, while she’s growing up," said Mrs. Raymond comfortingly, and turned to kiss the rosy mouth of her impatient granddaughter. As Peggy and Dorothy went hand in hand down the stairs, a little voice was wafted back to her. "Your present’s a secret, grandma. It’s going to be ’fum--" And Mrs. Raymond guessed that a resolute hand clapped over Dorothy’s too communicative lips, accounted for the sudden breaking off of the sentence.

Dorothy had been so excited over the prospect of spending her twenty-six cents that Peggy deemed it best not to mention the momentous interview which was to preceed the shopping. On the way down town, she broached the subject. "Dorothy, how would you like to see Santa Claus?"

Dorothy immediately stood up on the seat. "Aunt Peggy!" she exclaimed with trembling earnestness, "Are we going to the North Pole?"

"I’m afraid we’re not bundled up enough for such a cold journey," laughed Peggy. "But I guess we’ll find Santa on the third floor at Myers and Bates. And, if he’s there, you can tell him what you want most for Christmas."

"If I ask him for a dolly-baby’s carriage, do you s’pose he’ll shake his head?" cried Dorothy, lurching as the car jolted, and precipitating herself into Peggy’s arms. "Will he ’member how I slapped Sally, ’cause she wouldn’t let me eat out of Taffy’s plate?"

"Probably he’ll forgive you for that, if you’re very, very sorry," returned Peggy, smiling as she thought of the gift stored at Priscilla’s, to be safe from Dorothy’s prying. "Anyway, it won’t do any harm to ask him."

On the third floor of the department store, as Peggy had conjectured, a somewhat bored and stolid looking Santa Claus distributed mechanical pats on the heads of the children gathered about him, and nodded encouragement to their artless confidences. Dorothy gazed with half fearful fascination at his wealth of snowy hair, looking all the whiter in contrast to his florid complexion. Whether or not Santa Claus in the flesh fell short of her expectations, Peggy did not know, but whatever the explanation, she found it necessary almost to drag Dorothy to the august presence.

Her turn came after an interminable waiting. A big hand patted the top of Dorothy’s head and a deep voice asked, "An’ what are you afther wantin’ for Christmas?" Considering a life-long residence at the North Pole, Santa Claus’ accent was surprisingly suggestive of Tipperary.

Dorothy did not reply and Peggy nudged her. "Tell him what you want for Christmas, darling."

"A pair of mittens," Dorothy said faintly.

"Mittens!" exclaimed the astonished Peggy. "Why, I thought--" But Santa had nodded, and clapped his hand on the red head of the boy next in line. "And what would this foine lad be wantin’ for Christmas?"

The two moved on. Then Dorothy hid her face in Peggy’s skirts, smothering a wail.

"I don’t like Santa Claus," she sobbed. "And I hate mittens. I’ll frow ’em away. I’ll let Taffy eat ’em up."

"Then why did you tell him you wanted mittens?" asked Peggy, fighting back her laughter, as she realized the seriousness of the situation, from Dorothy’s point of view.

"Cause he didn’t look as if he’d give me a doll-carriage. He looked as if I hadn’t been a good girl. O, dear! O, dear!"

The situation was becoming embarrassing as Dorothy’s sobs grew more and more violent. People turned to stare, and Peggy hastily suggested a remedy.

"I tell you what, Dorothy. We’ll go back and tell him it was a mistake, and that what you really wanted was a doll-carriage."

Though this suggestion had the effect of drying Dorothy’s tears, it was some time before she could be persuaded to act upon it. When they again presented themselves in the line of supplicants, Dorothy hung back, and Peggy acted as spokesman.

"Santa Claus, this little girl made a mistake when she asked you for mittens. What she really wants is a nice doll-carriage, so she can take her dolly out riding."

Santa Claus looked at Dorothy’s pink eyelids, and cheeks still stained with tears, and a sudden attractive change came over him. He looked less like a tired, red-faced man, getting through with the drudgery of his day’s work, and more like the jolly saint of the chimney and fireplace. A twinkle appeared in his eye.

"I think mesilf ’tis a sinsible change," said Santa Claus, still with a surprising richness of accent. "An’ ’twud be no wonder, my little dear, if you got thim both, and a matter o’ small trifles beside." And with the gorgeous indefiniteness of this promise sounding in her ears, it was small wonder that Dorothy went away radiant.

Twenty-six cents is easily spent under certain conditions, and then again, its investment is a matter requiring the most profound deliberation, and accompanied by frequent changes of mind. The amount of time and consideration Dorothy found necessary before reaching a conclusion, passed belief. The good-natured Christmas crowd surged about her as she stood immovable before a counter, gazing dreamily on the articles displayed, and responding to Peggy’s hints with a reproving "Sh! I’m thinking." But at last her funds were expended, and presents provided for the entire family. As Dorothy would not listen to the suggestion that anything should be sent, both she and Peggy had their arms full of knobby packages anything but small, for the size of a Christmas gift bears little relation to the cost.

Once outside, Peggy drew a breath of relief. "That’s over for a year," she congratulated herself. "Dorothy, dear, let’s walk down to the next block. I want to get some Christmas seals."

Dorothy who had borne up surprisingly while her own shopping was in progress, now developed symptoms of weariness. "I’m getting awful tired in the legs, Aunt Peggy."

"We’ll go home in a very few minutes, Dorothy. Won’t grandma be surprised to see all these lovely packages, and won’t she wish she knew what was inside?" Thus skilfully did Peggy divert the thoughts of her small companion, till the tired little feet were trotting jubilantly over the pavements, keeping time to joyful thoughts.

Half way down the block a young man stood before a jeweller’s window, intent on the display. Something in his attitude struck Peggy as familiar. She looked at him very closely, and then her eyes flew to the sign over the door, King and Kennedy.

Peggy came to an abrupt halt. A sudden anger blazed in her eyes. Righteous indignation made her oblivious to everything but its exciting cause. For the young man by the jeweller’s window was Graham Wylie, and Peggy could not doubt that he was racking his brains to decide on a suitable Christmas gift for Maud.

It was not Peggy’s habit to evade responsibility by the thought that a thing was none of her business. She pushed her way through the crowd, and stood at Graham’s elbow. "Good afternoon."

Graham’s start was of course due to a guilty conscience, though the face he turned on Peggy was exasperatingly non-committal and cheerful. "Hello, Peggy. Come over to see the sparklers?"

"I don’t care much about jewellers’ windows," Peggy said with severity. "What’s the use of looking at a lot of things you can’t afford to buy, and then getting to want them, and making yourself miserable?"

Graham chuckled.

"That may be all right for some folks," he replied. "But your remarks don’t apply, of course, to wealthy individuals like myself. I’m thinking of buying up a few of the novelties before I go home, as Christmas remembrances for my friends."

He looked at Peggy smilingly, as if he expected her to appreciate the joke. Meeting the unblinking gravity of her gaze, his face changed slightly.

"I don’t believe any real friend of yours would want a very expensive present from you," exclaimed Peggy, too indignant to realize that she was on dangerous ground. "Because, of course, you can’t afford it."

A little irritation mingled with Graham’s surprise.

"Naturally a fellow just finishing college and dependent on his father for every cent, isn’t going to blow in much for jewelry," he replied with an air of wishing to change the subject. "Some of these designs are great, Peggy, even if we can’t buy them."

"Are they?" Peggy looked resolutely over the display, as if defying temptation.

"It’s an enterprising firm," continued Graham, mystified by her unusual manner. "They’re great on advertising. The first ad. I got from them nearly took me off my feet. It was gotten up like a letter."

"What!" Peggy’s sudden accession of breathless interest was as incomprehensible as her previous air of disapproval. "A letter? Tell me about it, Graham."

"Why, there isn’t much to tell. It reads like a note of thanks for different presents you’ve sent. It brings in the name of the firm once or twice, and puffs ’em up in an accidental way. The mother of one of the fellows read his, and thought it was the real thing. He had no end of trouble explaining."

This time Peggy joined in Graham’s laughter, and she was thankful that Ruth’s unconscious brother did not guess the tension of feeling beneath her merriment. Peggy only wished she had wings to fly to Ruth, and tell her that all was well. She fought against an alarming impulse to cry on the spot, to relieve her own overcharged heart. But as it happened, the fates had provided another outlet. There was no immediate danger of Peggy’s losing her head from joy.

"Where’s Dorothy?"

She flung the frightened question full in Graham’s face. The young fellow stood staring.

"Dorothy? Was she with you?"

"Yes. She was right here. She can’t have gotten far away. O, how could I forget her? How could I?"

They pushed through the crowd to the curb, looking wildly in both directions. Standing at Graham’s elbow, Peggy babbled on almost incoherently.

"Red coat, Graham, and a red hood. It was only a minute ago. O, why did I do it? Can’t you see a little girl all in red? O, what will mother say?"

"Look here, Peggy, you want to keep your head." The sharpness of Graham’s tone was like a dash of cold water, disagreeable but effective. "Dorothy won’t be hurt because she’s out of your sight for a minute. But if you’re going to be any help, you must stop this."

Peggy gasped a little, and followed meekly, pale and trembling, but controlling herself by a mighty effort. The policeman at the corner had not seen any little girl in red wandering off by herself, but he took a reassuring view of the situation.

"If you haven’t found her in twenty minutes call up the Stark Street station. They’re getting ’em there just now at the rate of twenty a day."

Twenty minutes! It was long before Peggy could hear that measure of eternity named, without thinking immediately of a seemingly interminable and altogether miserable stretch of time, in which she seemed to experience enough contrition and agonized foreboding for a half-dozen lives. "Isn’t it time to telephone, Graham?" she asked again and again, and each time Graham answered with amazing patience. "Not yet, Peggy. Don’t be scared. Everything will be all right."

In twenty minutes they had had time to search both sides of the street through the crowded shopping district, scanning the kalaidoscopic crowd in search of a little girl in a red coat and hood, their faces lighting up at every glimpse of that cheery color, and falling again as a closer look failed to reveal the object of their search.

At length the endless twenty minutes were up, and Graham went to telephone. Peggy waited for him at the corner, and on Graham’s return she clapped her hands over her ears. Later Graham wondered why, but at the time he was only thankful that it was not necessary for him to tell the bad news. Peggy lifted her eyes to his face, and on the instant read the truth.

"She isn’t there," she gasped. "O, Graham!"

Ruth’s brother took her by the arm. "Brace up, Peggy," he urged kindly. "I guess we didn’t give them quite time enough. I’ll call ’em up again in another ten minutes. Suppose we--"

He never got any further, for at the moment someone pulled Peggy’s sleeve, and Peggy, turning, looked down into a beautiful face. Strictly speaking, it perhaps lacked the elements of which beauty is supposed to consist. Under the carroty hair, innumerable freckles stood out in bold relief against the layers of grime, while the absence of a front tooth sacrificed in a fight, gave a peculiar impressiveness to the smile. But to Peggy the countenance was beyond criticism, for it was the face of Jimmy Dunn and he had Dorothy by the hand.

"She’s a great kid, she is," exclaimed Jimmy Dunn with his hoarse chuckle. "There was a Santy Claws with a banner, a-avertisin’ a sale o’ Christmas trees, down on Block street, and she up and trots after him. I seed her, and I knowed she b’longed to you, so I fetched her along back. Ef I hadn’t found you ’round here, I was going to take her home."

"Jimmy, old man," Graham exclaimed, "you’re all right." He slapped the boy’s shoulder with a good fellowship which meant more to Jimmy Dunn than a dollar bill. Meanwhile Peggy was crying over Dorothy, who in her eagerness to impart a great discovery of her own, was quite indifferent to the emotions of her relative.

"Aunt Peggy," she cried breathlessly, "What do you think? There’s two of Santa Claus. Two of him, Aunt Peggy."

Graham took them home, telling Peggy good-naturedly that she wasn’t fit to be trusted, and Peggy was too thankful to be taken care of, to resent the implication. The car was crowded, and Peggy was glad of the opportunity this gave her to hold Dorothy on her lap, and indulge in surreptitious hugs. Graham sat across the aisle and laughed at them both with the vast superiority of a collegian.

"He was a nice Santa Claus, Aunt Peggy," was Dorothy’s only defence when reproached for her abrupt departure. "I asked him for lots of things, a dolly, and another dolly and a naughty-mobeel and a gold watch and a new house and a picture book. O dear! Aunt Peggy, I wish I’d told him another dolly beside."

Graham left his charges at Peggy’s door as the early winter dusk was veiling the sky. He was half across the street when Peggy called after him:

"Graham! O, Graham! Please tell Ruth to come over here as quick as she possibly can."

"All right," Graham responded and smiled to himself. Peggy wanted to tell Ruth all about Dorothy’s disappearance, of course, and her rescue, as if it were an affair of thrilling moment. "Knew she’d turn up, all right," thought Graham, puffing out his chest, and congratulating himself on being superior to the weakness of girls, even the best of them.

He little guessed the real importance of the news Peggy had to tell, or the difference it was to make in his sister’s Christmas. When Ruth came back presently, moist around her lashes, and stooped to kiss him, as he sat poring over the evening paper, he was far from suspecting that in that kiss there was penitence, as well as the love of which he was so sure.

Dorothy had been asleep an hour when Mrs. Raymond bethought herself of a question which the exciting character of Peggy’s return had temporarily banished from her thoughts. "By the way, Peggy, where are Dorothy’s Christmas presents?"

Peggy sat up straight, stared at her mother, and let her work drop to the floor. "Mother Raymond!"

"Well, what is it, child?"

"Mother, they’re lost."

"Lost? You don’t mean all of them?"

"I’m--I’m afraid so." Peggy looked shamed-facedly at the carpet. "We both had our arms full, and I’m sure neither of us had a bundle coming home in the car. I suppose when I found Dorothy was lost, I let everything drop."

"And when Dorothy saw the Santa Claus she probably did the same," said Mrs. Raymond, laughing a little. "It isn’t a great loss as far as their value is concerned, but I’m afraid she will be dreadfully disappointed."

"I can slip down town to-morrow, mother, and get duplicates of everything. But I guess I’ll go alone. I don’t feel equal to taking Dorothy shopping again till Christmas is over."

Peggy stole into Dorothy’s room as she went upstairs to bed, just to make sure she was really there. The little face against the pillow was charmingly angelic. Dorothy asleep showed no traces of the mischief and elfishness which rendered the Dorothy awake a care as well as a delight. As Peggy stood looking down on her, Dorothy moved restlessly, and murmured the wonderful contribution that day had made to her fund of knowledge.

"There’s two--of Santa Claus."

*CHAPTER XIII*

*CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS*

"Hello, Central. That was the wrong number. I want White 6492, please. No, White. Yes, please."

It was the day before Christmas. At the telephone exchanges the girls, half beside themselves between the people inquiring anxiously as to the fate of packages not yet delivered, and others bent on extending the compliments of the season to their friends, were making connections with the haste which results in waste. Peggy, who was trying to telephone Elaine, and had twice received the wrong number, rolled her eyes impatiently in her mother’s direction.

"Reminds me of the telephones we used to make out of tin boxes and linen thread. When we couldn’t hear over the ’phone we’d run to the window and shout across the street. I could have gone to the Marshalls twice over, while I’ve been saving time by telephoning. Hello! Is that you, Mrs. Marshall? May I speak to Elaine a minute?"

It was not a very long wait this time. "Hello!" said a languid voice, not a Christmasy voice, by any means.

"Hello, Elaine. Going to be dreadfully busy this afternoon?"

"O, I guess not." Still the voice had a wilted sound. One knew instinctively that the mouth of the speaker drooped at the corners.

"I’ve got something to take over to the Dunns. I thought perhaps you’d go with me. And maybe you’d like to slip some little thing into the basket, a ribbon for one of the girls, or a package of nuts or something of that sort."

"All right," said Elaine, with a sufficiently long pause before her reply to give the impression that in point of fact it was all wrong. "I don’t mind."

"We’ll start about half-past three, I think. Then we’ll be back before it begins to be dark. Thank you ever so much." Peggy was smiling as she hung up the receiver, and then, catching her mother’s eye, her inward satisfaction boiled over in a chuckle.

"A little Christmas missionary work?" asked Mrs. Raymond, smiling too, for Peggy’s pleasure in her diplomacy was infectious.

Peggy nodded. "Mother, you don’t know how Elaine talks about Christmas. She says she wishes she could sleep right through it, and never wake up till everything was over. You see it is so different from every other Christmas Day she can remember."

"Of course it is, poor child."

"And I think," Peggy continued wisely, "that going to see the Dunns is pretty likely to give one a thankful feeling. If it wasn’t anything but getting back where things were clean, it would be quite a merry Christmas all by itself. Besides, the other girls are up to their neck in work, and Elaine isn’t going to give any presents to speak of, so she can spare the time better than anybody else."

When Elaine slipped through the opening in snow-covered hedge that afternoon, her appearance carried out the impression her voice had given in the brief conversation over the ’phone. She moved slowly, heavily, as if some unseen burden, resting on her young shoulders, claimed all her strength. Her face had the blankness of one whose thoughts are far away from her surroundings. When Peggy flung open the door to welcome her, the contrast between the two was almost painful, the one girl glowing, bubbling over with cheery vitality, the other wearily indifferent.

The sight of the big basket waiting in the hall was successful in rousing Elaine from her apathy. "What, all that?" she cried.

Peggy laughed.

"One’s the Christmas dinner. And the other has toys for the children. O, you needn’t look so surprised. I haven’t been extravagant. I’ve only taken up a collection in a few families where there are children, and got a lot of play-things they were tired of. Dick and I worked like Trojans, mending up things. Dick’s a genius when it comes to glue and that sort of thing."

Peggy pulled off the cover of the basket in her pride. "See those picture books! I made the covers of paste-board, with calico pasted over them. The insides were almost as good as new. Isabel’s doll has a new head from the ten cent store, and Estelle’s has a wig that belonged to another doll first. Francesca is too old for dolls, I suppose, so there’s a little bead necklace for her. And Jimmy and John--"

Elaine interrupted. "Isn’t it funny that the girls should have such dressy names, and the boys such every-day ones?"

"Mrs. Dunn names the girls, and Mr. Dunn the boys, that’s why. I’ve got a pocket-knife for Jimmy, and a Noah’s ark and things like that for the little boys. I guess it’ll seem like quite a Christmas to them, even if the toys are second hand."