Each Girl Carried an Unwieldy Bundle.
"How can we manage to deliver this stuff without being seen?" demanded Arline. "My arms ache already, and we haven't walked a block."
Grace set down her bundle on a convenient horse block and paused to consider. Arline dropped hers beside it with a sigh of relief. "I know what we can do," said Grace reflectively. "We can get Mr. Symes to go with us. He is that old man who does errands and takes messages for ever so many of the girls. We will go with him as far as the corner, then he can carry the things to the door and give them to the woman who owns the boarding house. He lives just around the corner from here. You stay here and watch the bundles and I will see if I can find him."
Grace found Mr. Symes at home and quite willing to carry out the final detail of the Christmas plan. The old man was duly sworn to secrecy and entered into the spirit of his errand almost as heartily as did Arline and Grace. At the chosen corner the girls halted, repeated their final instructions, and drawing back into the shadow, left him to deliver the two bulky packages, his wrinkled face wreathed in smiles.
He smiled even more broadly on his return to the watchers, as Grace slipped a crisp green note into his hand and wished him a Merry Christmas.
"Now we ought to do a little celebrating on our own account," she proposed. "Suppose we pay a visit to Vinton's. It isn't too cold for ices."
"That is just what I was thinking," agreed Arline.
An hour later Arline and Grace said good-bye on the corner below Wayne Hall. "I won't see you in the morning at the station, Grace," said Arline regretfully. "My train leaves a whole hour later than yours. I hope you will have a perfectly lovely Christmas. I hope eight other girls will, too. Don't you?"
"You're a dear little Daffydowndilly," smiled Grace as she kissed Arline's upturned face. "I am sure they will, and they have you to thank for their pleasure, though they will never know it."