At first the little girls couldn’t speak a word. They could only look and look, each one at her own Polly Perkins.
Then Patty turned and said, ‘Oh, Grandmother!’ and flung both arms about Grandmother’s neck and gave her a mighty hug. Next, to every one’s surprise, shy little Ailie did the same. And last of all Anne Marie stepped up and not only gave Grandmother a polite little hug, but dropped her a curtsy and placed a kiss on her hand as well.
‘Merci, Madame, merci,’ said Anne Marie, so excited that, for the moment, she quite forgot how to speak English.
‘Isabel,’ then cried Patty, turning to the table where Isabel had been hastily set down, ‘Isabel, look at Polly Perkins, do! Isn’t she a sister that you are proud to have? Oh, how glad I am that Polly is home with us at last!’
Ailie slipped a little hand into Grandmother’s and smiled up into her new friend’s face.
‘’Tis rare fine,’ whispered Ailie, pointing to the gay Scotch plaid lining in her dolly’s cape, ‘and Granny will be saying so, too, I’m thinking. The prettiest one of all.’
Holding their dollies the little girls could now turn their attention to the Tree.
It really seemed as if all the bright, sparkling, glittering objects in the world had been brought together and hung upon this Tree for Grandmother King’s Christmas Party.
Chains and balls, flowers and fruit, icicles and snowballs, all in gold and silver, rose and blue, scarlet and green, swung and bloomed on the thick, sweet, green boughs. There were gay cornucopias filled to the brim. There were chocolate roosters and chickens and ducks. There were pink-and-white peppermint baskets and canes and hats. There were fairy ships, and a parrot in a cage, and wee birds in a nest, and two little babies asleep in a cradle, side by side. And over all, on the topmost bough, there shone a great silver star, that seemed to glow with as pure and clear and frosty a light as that of any real star in the sky on this Eve of Christmas Day.
Then came ice-cream—for Grandmother said it wouldn’t be a real party without ice-cream—and Anne Marie’s Christmas cakes, oh, so good! And candy, as much as you could eat. And last of all, you might choose whatever you would, to keep, from off the Christmas Tree.