Sorrow neared the young girl's bed.
"Farewell for the present," she said; "be brave and reasonable, and take care of yourself, that I may not have to come to you again to punish."
She kissed the children. "I send you the angels and a good Christmas, have patience."
Then she softly lifted the door latch and was gone. Envy slid after her; and in her place, on the first sunbeam that smote the rows of houses, Hope floated into the room and made it light. Mother and children looked out expectantly. The girl pushed back her hair from her brow, and the bad thoughts retreated.
Sorrow paced so lightly across the snow that she scarcely left a trace, as though she were borne by the sharp east wind, whose pungent tongue mocked the fine winter morning. She went through the most aristocratic streets, and vanished into one of the stateliest houses; entering so softly that no one noticed her, not even the servants, who were stretching themselves on red cushioned divans in the entrance hall; not even the parrot that always cried, "Canaille! Canaille!" and made a wise face. She went up the broad stairs, where everything was perfumed of fir-trees, straight towards a high door, whence the laughter of youthful voices resounded. Unnoticed she stood in the high large room through whose many windows the sun streamed, touching the white-covered, long tables, on which still lay all the presents given the night before. At one end of the room stood three tall fir-trees, their branches bent under a gay weight, and round about the room some thirty smaller ones. The six huge chandeliers were encircled with garlands of fir and chains of glass balls, and from one to the other hung rows of colored paper lamps. It must have looked quite fairy-like in the evening with all the candles alight. Amidst this glory two tall slim, supple figures, in dark, close-fitting, cloth dresses, were playing battledore and shuttlecock. Every movement was of rare grace, and the delicate profiles with the dark arched eyebrows, stood out well against the somber firs. The gold brown hair of the one hung in voluptuous waves over her shoulders, only held together by a ribbon; a weight of fair plaits hung down the neck of the other. Their heads thrown backwards revealed faultlessly set necks and laughing rows of pearly teeth. It was a sight for gods, and the young man who looked on thought so, as he sat in Olympian calm carelessly reading in an armchair, dressed in an elegant morning suit, a cigarette in his ring-covered hand. From time to time, in a powerful baritone, he hummed some rather frivolous songs that each time drew down on him a storm of laughing reproaches.
"I beg my stern cousins to remark," he said, "that the ball has now fallen fourteen times to the ground, and that I consequently regret that my proposal was negatived that each such miss should be punished with a kiss."
The girls laughed, but suddenly they noticed Sorrow, who looked on seriously at their merriment, like a distant hail-cloud at a harvest home.
"Who are you?" both girls asked at once, approaching their strange guest.
Sorrow would fain have cast down her eyes that she might not look at the three young heads in that room; but she saw them, and felt herself spell-bound. She looked at all three, and then said in her soft, deep tones—