CHAPTER XXIV
Christmas Again
The ten Hutchinsons having left the library entirely alone in the hour before dinner, David and Margaret had appropriated it and were sitting companionably together on the big couch drawn up before the fireplace, where a log was trying to consume itself unscientifically head first.
“I would stay to dinner if urged,” David suggested.
“You stay,” Margaret agreed laconically.
She moved away from him, relaxing rather limply in the corner of the couch, with a hand dangling over the farther edge of it.
“You’re an inconsistent being,” David said. “You buoy all the rest of us up with your faith in the well-being of our child, and then you pine yourself sick over her absence.”
“It’s Christmas coming on. We always had such a beautiful time on Christmas. It was so 293 much fun buying her presents. It isn’t like Christmas at all with her gone from us.”
“Do you remember how crazy she was over the ivory set?”