Mrs. Leverett was a good deal interested in all this. It took her back to her own early life. City girls did come to have different ideas. There was something refreshing in this very homeliness.
Martha knit and sewed as fast as she talked. Mrs. Leverett said "she didn't let the grass grow under her feet," and Doris wondered if she would tread it out in the summer. Of course, it couldn't grow in the winter.
"Aunt Elizabeth," she said presently, in a sad little voice, "am I to sleep all alone?"
"Oh dear, no. You would freeze to an icicle. Martha will take Betty's place."
They wrapped up a piece of brick heated pretty well when Doris went to bed. For it was desperately cold. But the soft feathers came up all around one, and in a little while she was as warm as toast. She did not even wake when Martha came to bed. Sometimes Betty cuddled the dear little human ball, and only half awake Doris would return the hug and find a place to kiss, whether it was cheek or chin.
"Aunt Elizabeth," when she came in from school one day, "do you know that Christmas will be here soon—next Tuesday?"
"Well, yes," deliberately, "it is supposed to be Christmas."
"But it really is," with child-like eagerness. "The day on which Christ was born."
"The day that is kept in commemoration of the birth of Christ. But some people try to remember every day that Christ cams to redeem the world. So that one day is not any better than another."
Doris looked puzzled. "At home we always kept it," she said slowly. "Miss Arabella made a Christmas cake and ever so many little ones. The boys came around to sing Noël, and they were given a cake and a penny, and we went to church."