“Mebbe they’ve stopped to talk, meetin’ folks,” site said, again. “But they’d ort to be in sight now.” She trembled so she had to get a chair and sit down. But still she wrinkled her cheek upon the cold pane and strained her dim eyes down the street.
After a while a boy came whistling down from the corner. There was a letter in his hand. He stopped and rapped, and when she opened the door with a kind of frightened haste, he gave her the letter and went away, whistling again.
A letter! Why should a letter come? Her heart was beating in her throat now,—that poor old heart that had beaten under so many sorrows! She searched in a dazed way for her glasses. Then she fell helplessly into a chair and read it:
“Dear Mother,—I am so sorry we cannot come, after all. We just got word that Robert’s aunt has been expecting us all the time, because we’ve spent every Christmas there. We feel as if we must go there, because she always goes to so much trouble to get up a fine dinner; and we knew you wouldn’t do that. Besides, she is so rich; and one has to think of one’s children, you know. We’ll come, sure, next year. With a merry, merry Christmas from all,
“Eliza.”
It was hard work reading it, she had to spell out so many of the words. After she had finished, she sat for a long, long time motionless, looking at the letter. Finally the cat came and rubbed against her, “myowing” for her dinner. Then she saw that the fire had burned down to a gray, desolate ash.
She no longer trembled, although the room was cold. The wind was blowing steadily now. It was snowing, too. The bleak Christmas afternoon and the long Christmas night stretched before her. Her eyes rested upon the little fir-tree on a table in one corner, with its gilt balls and strings of popcorn and colored candles. She could not bear the sight of it. She got up stiffly.
“Well, kitten,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, but with a pitiful break in her voice, “let’s go out an’ eat our Christmas dinner.”
BOOKS ON NATURE
BADENOCH (L. N.).—The Romance of the Insect World. By L. N. Badenoch. With Illustrations by Margaret J. D. Badenoch and others. Second Edition. Gilt top, $1.25.