“Stupid thing!” she exclaimed presently, throwing the book to the further end of the room with a little petulant gesture. “I can’t even cry when the heroine dies. What is the good of a book if you can’t cry over it?”
Just then there came a tap at the door, and in walked Ralph with his cheerful face, and in his hands was a great bunch of ivy and mistletoe.
“A happy Christmas to you,” he said, taking her cold little hand in his. “How’s the Professor? Not worse I hope?”
“He is no worse,” said Ivy, “but he has been asleep all day, and it’s dreadfully dull. Where did you get such lovely evergreens?”
“Walked out into the country this morning, right away beyond Hampstead. As for the mistletoe, that’s a particular present from Dan Doolan, and I’ve just had to kiss seven small Doolans beneath it before they would let me out of the house. Now your turn has come.”
Ivy laughed and protested, but was thrilled through and through by the kiss, though it was just as matter-of-fact as that which he had bestowed on Tim Doolan, aged three. Her little, pale face lighted up radiantly, but unobservant Ralph saw nothing of that, he was bestowing all his energies on the decoration of the dreary, little room, and crowning with ivy the portraits of sundry great actors and actresses.
“Do you think Mrs. Siddons ever looked as stiff and forbidding as this?” he said, glancing round with a smile, as Ivy held him a laurel branch to put above the frame.
“Yes,” she replied, saucily. “She must have looked like that when she said in awful tones, ‘Will it wash?’ to the poor frightened shopman who was serving her.”
“Ah, perhaps. Well, Ivy, there is no fear that you will ever strike terror into any one’s heart.”
“Who cares for striking terror into people?” she replied, merrily, and as she spoke she began to float dreamily away into an exquisitely graceful skirt-dance; her little, childish face growing more and more sweet and tranquil as she proceeded.