“Don’t you, Miss Dear?”
“I feel almost too good,” Nancy said, “as if in another minute the top of the world might come off.”
“The top of the world is screwed on very tight, I think,” said Sheila. “I used to think when I was a little girl that it was made out of blue plush, but now I know better than that.”
“It might be,” Nancy argued, “blue plush and bridal veils. There’s a great deal of filmy white about it, to-day.”
“It’s a long way off from Fifth Avenue,” Sheila sighed, “too far. I am not going to think about it any more. I am going to think hard about what to give my father. Michael said to get a smoking set, but I don’t know what a smoking set is. Hitty said some hand knit woolen stockings, but I am afraid he would be scratched by them. Gaspard said a big bottle of Cointreau, but I do not know what that is either.”
“Couldn’t we give him a beautiful brocaded dressing-gown and a Swiss watch, thin as a wafer, and some handkerchiefs cobwebby fine, and a dozen bottles of Cointreau, and—then get the other things as we think of them?”
“Are we rich enough to do that?” Sheila asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Rich enough to buy anything we want, Sheila,” Nancy cried. “I had no idea it was going to be such a heavenly feeling. When you say your prayers to-night, Sheila, I hope you will ask God to bless somebody you’ve never heard of before. Elijah Peebles Martin, do you think you could remember that long name, Sheila?”
“Yes, Miss Dear,—do you remember him in your prayers every night?”