Kenneth and Rose took the little cat downstairs and gave her a good dinner. “But you shall have a better one on Christmas Day,” promised Kenneth. Rose found a tiny basket and made a bed beside the fire in the dining-room. And there the black cat slept all the afternoon, she was so tired, and so glad to rest and to be warm. Rose sat beside her, stroking her soft fur, and Kenneth sat at the other side of the fireplace trying to think up a good name for the new kitty, so that the time went before they knew it, and they had forgotten to wish it were Christmas day.
“What have you named the little cat?” asked their papa when the children showed him their new pet that evening.
“Oh, Kenneth has thought of the loveliest name!” cried Rose, jumping up and clapping her hands. “We are going to call her Christine,—because she is a little Christmas cat. Isn’t that a beautiful name, Papa?”
And Papa said that he thought it was a very beautiful name indeed.
CHAPTER II
THE CHRISTMAS CAT’S PRESENT
THE next morning when Kenneth and Rose awoke, it was bright and fair. The storm had cleared away, and the whole world was white and wonderful with spangled snow. Now the children could play out of doors as much as they liked, and the time went so fast that they almost forgot to wish Christmas would hurry up. Their cousin Charlie came over to play with them, and they built snow forts and snowballed one another; they made big statues of snow in the back yard and shoveled the sidewalks and the front steps nicely. Before they knew it it was evening again,—Christmas eve, and their mamma was inviting them to come and see her secret in the library.
And what do you think the secret was? When the folding doors were thrown open there was a glare of light and a smell of woodsy green, and Kenneth and Rose and their cousin Charlie cried “Oh!” they were so surprised. For there stood a beautiful Christmas tree, glittering with spangles and icicles and silver balls and tiny candles.
Kenneth and Rose and Charlie danced around the tree, and they had a beautiful time finding the little bags of candy which were hidden for each of them among the green branches.
“It was a lovely, lovely secret,” whispered Rose in her mamma’s ear. “And when I grow up I will make one just like it for my dolls.”
When all the candles had sputtered and gone out, Charlie’s papa came to take him home. And after that it was time to go to bed. But first they must hang up their stockings for Santa Claus to fill. They tied them up over the fireplace in the library,—Kenneth’s long black stocking and Rose’s shorter brown one. Then Kenneth said,—