“I am sure, Miss, that they do wish you a Merry Christmas.”
“You may go, Celeste,” said Ethel with a dignity not unlike her mother’s manner.
The maid shrugged her shoulders again, left the room and closed the door. Everything was lovely, everything was there except that personal touch which means so much even to the littlest girl. Ethel was used to being cared for by others than her parents but it came especially hard on her this morning. She turned, leaving the beautiful things as they were placed about the tree, and walked to the end window whence she could get a view of the little house beyond the garage over the back wall.
There was a Christmas tree in Maggie’s house too. It wouldn’t have made a respectable branch for Ethel’s tree, and the trimmings were so cheap and poor that Celeste would have thrown them into the waste basket immediately. There were a few common, cheap, perishable little toys around the tree on the floor but to Maggie it was a glimpse of heaven. She stood in her little white night-gown—no such thing as dressing for her on Christmas morning—staring around her. The whole family was grouped about her, even the littlest brothers, who went to school because they were not big enough to work, forgot their own joy in watching their little sister. Her father, her mother, the big boys all in a state of more or less dishevelled undress stood around her, pointing out first one thing and then another which they had been able to get for her by denying themselves some of the necessities of life. Maggie was so happy that her eyes brimmed, yet she did not cry. She laughed, she clapped her hands, and kissed them all round and finally found herself, a big orange in one hand, a tin trumpet in the other, perched upon her father’s broad shoulders leading a frantic march around the narrow confines of the living-room. As she passed by the one window she caught a glimpse of the alley. It had been snowing throughout the night and the ground was white.
“Oh,” she screamed with delight, “let me see the snow on Christmas morning.”
Her father walked over to the window, parted the cheap lace curtains, while Maggie clapped her hands gleefully at the prospect. Presently she lifted her eyes and looked toward the other window high up in the air, where Ethel stood, a mournful little figure. Maggie’s papa looked too. He knew how cheap and poor were the little gifts he had bought for his daughter.
“I wish,” he thought, “that she could have some of the things that child up there has.”
Maggie however was quite content. She smiled, flourished her trumpet, waved her orange, but there was no answering smile on Ethel’s face now. Finally the wistful little girl in the big house languidly waved her hand, and then Maggie was taken away to be dressed lest she should catch cold after the mischief was done.
“I hope that she’s having a nice Christmas,” said Maggie, referring to Ethel.