"Over the prodigal son," rejoined Joe. "Kit, here, who spends his substance in fiddles and riotous living."
"No: it is Dot who does the latter."
Dot laughed. "You will not complain, when I ask you to share the riotous living," she said.
The tables were set out, and Dot hunted up the best cloth. White enough it was too. Then the plates: how many were there? For somehow her wits seemed to have gone wool-gathering, and she had a misgiving lest some of them might disappear.
"Oh!"
Kit gave a great cry, dashed open the door, and flew down the walk, his scalp-lock flying, until he went head first into a snowbank.
"Kit's demented, and there's a girl at the bottom of it," said Joe. "O Kit! you've gone the way of mankind early."
"It's Charlie!" almost screamed Dot, following as if she had been shot out of a seventy-four pounder.
"Charlie! Oh, what a blessed, blessed Christmas!"
They dragged Charlie in,—not by the hair of her head, for that was hardly long enough. Charlie, in a pretty brown dress and cloak, a squirrel collar and muff, a jaunty hat with green velvet bands and a green feather. She was quite tall, and not so thin; and a winter of good care had completed the bleaching process commenced at the mill. She was many shades fairer, with a soft bloom on her cheek, while her mouth no longer threatened to make the top of her head an island.