“I didn’t expect him to until there was a little grandchild. That would be the proper thing, of course, and Father does love to do the proper thing.... I wish there was a little grandchild! That would be something important and interesting. Something real.”
“Andrée, you’re not going to be trying to-day!”
“No, I’m not! I’m going to be lovely—the spirit of Christmas,” she said.
And she was. She was delighted with her glittering little tree, and with all their gifts. She was gay, loving, almost tender. She dominated everything; they all watched her with pleasure, moving about the little room; they listened while she played for them. At the end of the evening she and Edna and Bertie sang a Christmas carol they had learned as children, and it made her cry a little.
“Dear people!” she said. “Thank you all, so very much! You’ve given me such a happy Christmas!”
No one thought of denying that it was her Christmas, or that the common object had been her happiness.
She went out to the lift with them and kissed each one with particular ardour, her mother, her sister, her laughing brother.
“Good night!” she said, still looking after them, still smiling, as if she could not bear to see them go.
They were always glad to look back at that Christmas, for they were never to have another like it.