And Grandmother, still carrying Polly Perkins, went carefully down the stairs, leaving Ailie to rush back into the room to tell Granny over and over again just how it had all happened.
‘She is a grand good friend,’ said Granny with a nod of her head. ‘You can read it in her face.’
‘Aye, that you can,’ answered wee Ailie.
CHAPTER VIII
GRANDMOTHER KING’S CHRISTMAS PARTY
Patty was so surprised at everything that had happened that she didn’t know what to think.
You may imagine how surprised she felt to see her own dear lost Polly Perkins being almost pulled apart in the street by two strange little girls. But you may also imagine her surprise to find on reaching home that Grandmother had carried Polly into her own room and that Patty was not to see her at all.
‘It is Christmas time, Patty,’ said Mother with a smile. ‘Remember Grandmother’s Christmas Party and be patient and wait.’
That was all Mother would say to Patty about it, and Grandmother told her even less. Indeed, Grandmother now spent most of her time shut in her own room, while Mother went about with a smile on her face, closing closet doors that would pop open and whisking parcels into bureau drawers so that Patty might not see.
In a day or so Patty began to smell a Christmas Tree, but though she searched and searched she could find no trace of one.
‘But I know I smell a Christmas Tree, Isabel,’ confided Patty to her doll. ‘Don’t you? And don’t you want to see Polly Perkins the worst way now that she is in the house with us? I don’t see how I can ever wait for Grandmother’s Party, Isabel. Oh, how I wish Christmas Eve was this very, very minute.’