"Isn't it just too bad? Well, we must try to have as jolly a time as we can. We are in something the same box, for we must do without our mother, too. There will be all sorts of parties and things going on in town, so maybe you will enjoy yourselves more than you think; still I am very sorry for you. Christmas anywhere except in one's own home and with one's own family can't help being sort of dreary."
Such sweet sympathy was consoling and Ran helped her to look for the pine cones which she put in the hood of her cloak to carry away. He promised to help her with the wooden framework upon which she was to glue the cones, and suggested a quadruple frame which would look more important than four small ones.
"But the glass will be harder to get," said Nan. "I have some old photograph plates that I was going to clean off and use for the small frames. Ammonia cleans them beautifully."
"I'll attend to getting the glass for you," promised Ran. "I know where there is a piece of glass that will just do." The glass was at the one frame-maker's in town and Ran meant to buy it, but he did not tell Nan so, knowing she would object. Nan told him about Jack's calendar and he offered not only to furnish the photograph they wanted but to take several more of interiors which could be scattered through the pages to give comfort and pleasure to the absent mother.
Never before had Ran been so kind and interested and when he left her at her grandmother's door Nan said: "I always wanted an older brother, Ran, to do just the things for me that you are going to do. It is a real comfort to know you are going to be here all through the holidays."
Her Aunt Helen gave her the warm greeting with which she always met this niece for whom she daily felt a deeper affection. Nan was so graciously appreciative, so winsomely enthusiastic, so spontaneously affectionate, that her aunt felt that of all her nieces she must always love her best. Nan first told of the pleasure they had been having in looking over and dividing the remaining articles of the trunk, and then she said, "There are two or three things I want to consult you about, Aunt Helen. We ought and want to give something to the boys, but boys are so hard to get things for, and when one has no money——" She stopped short with a blush. Never, except by accident, did she refer to this fact in the presence of her aunt and grandmother. "I mean," she went on, "it is much nicer to make something unless you can really buy something worth while, as mother says. There are four of us and there are two boys; that makes eight presents, you see."
"Truly that is quite a number to think of," said her aunt.
"Yes, it is. Mary Lee is going to give each of them a box of panuchee—I don't know what we should do this year if we didn't know how to make it—so that leaves six."
"We shall have to put on our thinking-caps," said Miss Helen, meditatively. "You could make a twine ball, for one thing; that is cheap and easy and boys always are glad of string."
"But it takes a ball of twine."