Katy fairly flew to the shed and returned bearing aloft a package which in size, shape, and wrappings was identical with that which had just been set before Grandad. Granny opened it, displaying the mate to Grandad's pudding.
"Whee, whee!" cried little Patsy. "Me wants it! Me wants it!"
But Bridget was ready with a third order.
"Norah, my jewel, you'll likely find something to your credit forninst the dishpan."
Norah lifted the dishpan and in a trice pudding number three was standing beside its predecessors.
"I'll bet yer, kids," said Terence, the ready spokesman, "there's a pudding for every last one of us. Let's get busy and hunt. Sure, I see something under the stove."
Mrs. M'Carty let them hunt. They preferred this, and the fun ran high as one pudding after another was discovered. The house, though so small, held more hiding-places than one would have supposed, and it was some time before the last pudding consented to be found. Mrs. M'Carty allowed each one to cut his pudding and eat a generous portion. To more fastidious palates, cold plum pudding without sauce might have seemed a doubtful luxury, but to the little M'Cartys, who never before had tasted the dainty, the plum puddings were a veritable "feast of Lucullus." Baby Ellen was given a crumb or two, and she goo-ed, and gurgled, and smiled on them all as if she thought herself the cause of all this festivity.
