"Merry Christmas, little mistress."
"Dick—if you tell, I'll never speak to you again. I only wanted to see if 'twas true."
She stepped inside the chall, shutting the door behind her. Under one arm she hugged a big boy-doll, dressed like a sailor—from the Christmas-tree, I guessed—and a bright tinsel star was pinned on the shoulder of her bodice. She had come across the cold town-place in her muslin frock, with no covering for her shoulders; and the manner in which that frock was hitched upon her made me stare.
"I got out of bed again and dressed myself," she explained. "Nurse is in the kitchen, dancing with the young man from Penare, who can't afford to marry her for ever so long, father says. I saw them twirling, as I slipped out—"
"You have done a wrong thing," said I: "you might catch your death."
Her lip fell:—she was but five. "Dick, I only wanted to see if 'twas true."
"What?" I asked, covering her shoulders with the empty sack that had been my pillow.
"Why, that the cows pray on Christmas-eve. Nurse says that at twelve o'clock to-night all the cows in their stalls will be on their knees, if only somebody is there to see. So, as it's near twelve by the tall clock indoors, I've come to see," she wound up.
"It's quig-nogs, I expect. I never heard of it."
"Nurse says they kneel and make a cruel moan, like any Christian folk. It's because Christ was born in a stable, and so the cows know all about it. Listen to Dinah! Dick, she's going to begin!"