“Kitty! Kitty! Merry Christmas, Kitty!” It was Johnnie’s voice.
A tiny face peeped down at her from white wrappings and shawls, laughing at her as from a hood of snow.
Yes, it was Johnnie—Johnnie wrapped up like an Esquimaux; wrapped out of all shape; a bundle of white wool in their mother’s arms.
She, too, was smiling down upon her little girl.
Kitty had fallen down, down, and while falling had lost all sense of everything except that voice, and now here she was back again in her own bed as if nothing had happened. Oh! what cannot Love do?
Kitty started up, and before she could say a word Johnnie was put into her arms, tucked up into the bed beside her, and their mother told her that Johnnie had slept through the night, and that he had turned the bad corner of his illness. “He begged so hard to be allowed to wake you up by calling out ‘Merry Christmas,’ I could not refuse him,” continued the mother, shedding tears of gladness. “Christmas Day has brought a blessing.”
“Happy Christmas to everybody!” said their father, now putting his head into the room. He looked as if he would like to say something that would make everybody laugh. But instead of that he paused and said instead, in a very husky voice, “God bless little Johnnie!”
“That’s what I say,” cried nurse, whisking a tear away with the corner of her apron. “I thought it was going to be the most miserable Christmas Day that ever was, but Johnnie getting better makes it as different—as different—as if this was a Christmas-box come down to this house from heaven.”