Grand’mère nodded, smiling all the while, and in silence she and Anne Marie stood looking at the bed.
‘I know,’ said Anne Marie suddenly, ‘I know whom Maman will be like. She will be like my little fairy dancer, only, of course, much more beautiful. Come, Grand’mère! Come and see my fairy dancer. She, too, is all silver and white. See her dance, Grand’mère! See her whirl! I can do that too.’
And, holding Polly’s hands, Anne Marie whirled and twirled like her little fairy dancer until both she and Polly fell in a heap to the floor.
‘It is now time for bed,’ said Grand’mère, ‘and there is much for you to do to-night before you go to sleep.’
In less time than you might think, Anne Marie was washed and brushed and in her nightgown, almost ready for bed.
Almost ready for bed, but not quite. For it was Christmas Eve, remember, and although Anne Marie was not going to hang up her stocking, she was going to leave her shoe beside the hearth.
And would the little Noel fill a shoe as surely as Kris Kringle would stuff a stocking with toys and goodies of every kind?
Certainly he would.
He had done it over and over for Papa and Maman when they were little children in far-away France. He had done it for Grand’mère in that long-ago time when she was a little girl like Anne Marie. Indeed, without doubt, he would do it that very night for those little children in France and elsewhere who believed in him and who left one of their shoes beside the hearth for him to fill.
So Anne Marie made ready to place her shoe beside the hearth.