"Norman's way is a dandy one," acknowledged Mary, as she opened a box of fine stationery engraved with her monogram, the first she had ever owned. "Now I can write my note to Gay on this. If we had waited I should have had to use the common paper that we buy at the drug-store by the pound, because it is cheap. And it's so nice too, to have these holly-wreaths beforehand."
She danced away to hang them in the windows, and to swing the Lady Agatha from a corner of the mirror over her bureau, where her hidden needle-book could readily be reached. Then she thriftily gathered up every bit of ribbon and tinsel from the discarded wrappings, smoothed out the tissue paper and picked loose from it all the adhering seals that had not been broken in the process of tearing open the packages.
"Here's seven whole seals with holly on them," she announced to her mother, "six with Santa Claus heads and four with the greeting Merry Christmas. I'm going to use them over again in doing up the rest of my packages. That box that the doll came in is exactly what I want to put the candy in that I made for the Barnabys. And that plain one that holds the stuffed dates that Lucy Boyd sent will do for the candy I'm going to send Mr. and Mrs. Metz. All I'll need to do is to cover it with some of this holly paper and tie it with the same gold cord. I'll find a use for nearly everything I've saved before the week is over."
She said it in a tone of such deep satisfaction that Norman looked up from the book and other gifts in which he had seemed absorbed, to laugh at her.
"Mary is like that old woman who wrote those recipes for cheap pies in that old New England cook-book we have at home," he said to his mother. "She thinks 'a little Ingenuity added to almost any material that comes to hand will make a tasty pie!' You ought to send the Ladies' Home Magazine some pointers, Mary, on 'How to make Christmas gifts for others on the wrappings of those sent you.' Didn't some one say something about the scrap-bag habit awhile ago?"
Mary's only answer was a saucy grimace. She could afford to let him tease her about her squirrel instinct for hoarding, when it gave her so much satisfaction to add to her store of scraps. She had all sorts of things to draw on in emergencies. In the one month they had been in Bauer she had nearly filled a shoe-box with odds and ends. She had sheets of tin-foil, saved from packages of chocolate, picture cards, little bottles and boxes and various samples of toilet articles sent out by firms who advertise their goods in that way.
For the next two days every mail brought greetings and remembrances to some one of the family, sometimes to all, so that the hours slipped by at a fairly rapid pace. One of the gifts which gave Mary most pleasure was the chiffon scarf that Lloyd sent. It was like the one Roberta wore the first evening Mary had seen her, and which she rapturously compared to "a moonbeam spangled with dew-drops," only she thought hers far lovelier than Roberta's. A dozen times a day she slipped into her room to take the floating, filmy web from its box, and spread it out to gloat over it. She had to try the effects of different lights on it, sunshine and moonlight and the rays of the lamp. She spread it over different dresses, white, pink and green, to see which produced the prettiest glimmers, and Norman caught her once posing before a mirror with it draped over head, and teased her all the rest of the evening.
Betty's gift was a simple, inexpensive one, intended merely as a greeting. It was only a green bay-berry candle, but the card tied to it by a scarlet bow bore the verse:
"This bay-berry candle's tongue of flame
Bears message. Prithee hear it!
While it burns mid your Christmas greens
I'm with you all in spirit!"
"I'm glad that it's a big fat candle," said Mary, passing it around for each one to enjoy the spicy, aromatic fragrance. "It'll burn a long time."