"Please, won't you give me a little money and some supper, and telephone to Aunt Julia!"
Seven minutes later Mr. Thomas Butterfield had Mrs. Kennedy at the other end of the wire.
CHAPTER XXIV
A BROWN DRESS FOR ELSIE
Christmas, for Genevieve, was not a happy time that year; and when the day was over she tried to forget it as soon as possible.
She had stayed all night with the Butterfields—which had not been unalloyed joy; for, though they obviously tried to be kind to her, yet they could not help showing that they regarded her sudden appearance among them, dinnerless and moneyless, as most extraordinary, and certainly very upsetting to the equanimity of a well-ordered household.
In the morning she went back to Sunbridge. At the house she found Miss Chick ill. Her cold, and her fright over Genevieve, had sent her into a high fever; and Mrs. Kennedy was scarcely less ill herself.
Certainly it was not exactly a cheerful Christmas Day for the one whose heedlessness had brought it all about. But Genevieve mourned so bitterly, and blamed herself so strongly, that at last, out of sheer pity, Mrs. Kennedy, and even Miss Jane Chick, had to turn comforter; for—as Mrs. Kennedy reminded her sister—it was, after all, aside from her thoughtless lack of haste, only Genevieve's unselfish forgetfulness of her own possible wants that led to the whole thing. Then, and not until then, did Genevieve bestow some attention upon her Christmas presents, of which there were a generous number.