“All right,” cried the fairy, clapping her hands. “I’ll do the thinking and you can do the working. It’s easy for me to think.”
“And it’s just as easy for me to work,” said Feldar, with hearty good-will.
The day before Christmas, poor Count Cormo sat, quite disconsolate, in his castle-hall, before a hearth where there was no fire. He had sold his family bedstead, but he had received very little money for it. People said such old bedsteads were not worth much, even if they were inlaid with precious metals. So he had been able only to prepare a small tree, on which he had hung the cheapest kind of presents, and his feast was very plain and simple. The Countess, indeed, was afraid the things would not go around, for their old servant had told them that he had heard there would be more children at the castle the next day than had ever been there before. She was in favor of giving up the whole affair and of sending the children home as soon as they should come.
“What is the use,” she said, “of having them here, when we have so little to give them? They will get more at home; and then if they don’t come we shall have the things for ourselves.”
“No, no, my dear,” said the Count; “this may be the last time that we shall have the children with us, for I do not see how we can live much longer in this sorrowful condition, but the dear girls and boys must come to-morrow. I should not wish to die knowing that we had missed a Christmas. We must do the best with what we have, and I am sure we can make them happy if we try. And now let us go to bed, so as to be up early to-morrow.”
The Countess sighed. There was only one little bedstead, and the poor Count had to sleep on the floor.
Christmas-day dawned bright, clear, and sparkling. The Count was in good spirits.
“It is a fine day,” he said to his wife, “and that is a great thing for us.”
“We need all we can get,” said the Countess, “and it is well for us that fine days do not cost anything.”