“What sort of present?” demanded Dot. “Something for my Alice-doll?”
“It’s going to be a great one!” said Sammy. “I’m going to give it to you. Mike Donlan——Well, never mind! You’re going to be surprised.”
“I like to be surprised,” confessed Dot.
“You will be,” said Sammy, nodding vigorously.
“Well, we are not going until after Christmas,” said Tess, with sudden memory. “So it will be all right.”
“But if I give you this present you ought to stay home and look out for it,” declared their boy friend.
“It must be alive,” said Tess thoughtfully.
At that, Sammy, much afraid that he might “give it away,” departed in haste. He could not be confident of his own ability to dodge any cross-examination of Tess Kenway’s.
Christmas Eve came at last. For the first time she could remember Ruth went to bed without putting the last touches to the Christmas tree in the big dining-room. But she really was not equal to it. So Mrs. MacCall did all that, aided by Linda and old Uncle Rufus.
As usual the toys and games for the little folks were numberless. And nobody was forgotten. Sammy Pinkney, however, had come to Uncle Rufus early in the evening and begged him to leave the side door of the Corner House unlocked when the family had got through dressing the tree.