Jinnie was very happy, and she talked freely with them. She told them about her search for Kris Kingle, and about that splendid doll she saw in the window on the night she went to the strange baker’s.
Although entertaining sentiments which forbade any enthusiasm for Christmas and Kris Kingle, and dolls in gorgeous apparel, something impelled Thomas Elwood to go to see that special doll.
That night, as he sat with his wife in front of the grate fire in the sitting-room, she said to him, Jinnie being in bed,—
“Thomas, does thee think there would be any harm in giving Virginia a little pleasure on the 25th of this month?”
“How does thee mean, Rachel?”
“Well, she seems to have her little head filled with nonsense about Kris Kingle and Christmas, and as the poor child has had a life so full of misery, I thought, perhaps, we might—”
“Thee doesn’t mean to keep Christmas in this house, does thee?”
“Not exactly that, but—”
“What would Friends say if we should do that?”
“No; but there can be no harm in giving the poor child some playthings, and we may as well give them upon one day as another.”