"I've always wanted a watch," breathed Jean, "but I certainly supposed I'd have to wait until I'd graduated from high-school—folks almost always get them then."
"And I," beamed Marjory, "never expected a pretty, really truly girl's watch, because—worse luck—I'm to get Aunty Jane's awful watch when she dies. Of course I don't want her to die a minute before her time, but getting even that watch seemed sort of hopeless because all Aunty Jane's ancestors that weren't killed by accident lived to enjoy their nineties. But that doesn't prevent Aunty Jane's promising me that clumsy old turnip whenever she's particularly pleased with me."
Bettie was too delighted for speech. But her big brown eyes spoke eloquently for her.
Rosa Marie accepted the unusual tree, all her Teddy bears, her dolls and other gifts, very much as a matter of course. Nothing it appeared was ever sufficiently surprising to astonish calm little Rosa Marie.
"Perhaps," offered Bettie, "she's awfully surprised inside."
"I know I am," laughed Mabel. "Inside and out, too."
Then, just as Mrs. Crane had decided that Rosa Marie had been outdoors long enough, the Slater carriage arrived for the girls. Mr. Black, beaming at the success of his Christmas party, packed them with all their belongings into the vehicle and they rolled happily away.
They stopped at their own homes just long enough to drop most of the gifts they had garnered from the Black-Crane tree; and then Henrietta whisked her friends to the Slater home, where Mrs. Slater entertained them for two hours over a delightful, genuinely English Christmas supper.
Henrietta's tree, too, was a very handsome one. A realistic Santa Claus who seemed as English as the supper, since he dropped the letter H just as Simmons always did, distributed the gifts. When the Cottagers opened odd, foreign-looking parcels and found that Henrietta had given each girl a set of three beautiful Oriental boxes with jewelled tops, their delight knew no bounds. They had expected nothing so fine.