"Do you like it? It's my one French gown, and an inexpensive one, too, but it looks festal, and I thought I 'd christen it to-night. Will you wear the one I have for you? I meant to put it on the tree, but it occurred to me you might like to wear it and keep me company," and Shirley pulled a long box from under the valance of the high 'four-poster' bed.
"You are the dearest thing that ever lived!" cried Nancy, going down on her knees before the box, and lifting out the frock of pale blue veiling, with its trimmings of flowered ribbon, a girlish creation of the sort to please young eyes.
It was a very happy pair of maids who descended the staircase together. They were happy, however, in two quite different ways. Nancy's cup was overflowing in the delight of her pretty finery; but it was a joy of another sort which made Shirley's heart beat high. Under the folds of gray with the scarlet flowers a small envelope lay hidden, over the contents of which the girl had spent an anxious hour.
There has not been room to tell of it in this brief chronicle, but for the last month Shirley had been having consultations with Murray over an important subject--the matter of an investment she wished to make. She owned not a small amount of property, in stocks and bonds, an inheritance from her grandfather, the management of which had been put into her hands by her father as a matter of education. Within a few weeks a chance for profitable investment of a portion of this holding had appealed to her, and after a spirited argument with her brother, she had received his sanction in the course she was eager to adopt.
The legal part of the transaction had been completed two days before Christmas, and since then Shirley had been greatly occupied in spare moments with the composition of something which might seem to have small connection with so prosaic a subject as the transfer of certain legal documents from one pair of hands to another. She was not yet satisfied with the result of her endeavours, being no poet, but the best burlesque production of which she had been capable had been carefully copied on her typewriter, and was now reposing where its presence considerably quickened the heart-beats under the scarlet flowers.
At a moment when she was alone in the room Shirley slipped round behind the tree, and extracting the envelope from its agitating position, quickly, although with fingers which mixed themselves up a little, tied it in an obscure place beneath a bough, where a gay golden ball nearly hid it from view.
"Come out! Come out!" commanded Rufus, as, arriving upon the scene, he spied her. "Absolutely not a feather's weight more allowed on that tree. There never was a tree so bowed down with care as that one. Nor another small boy so impatient to begin as this one. I caught sight of my name on that package six feet long under there, and I 've been delirious with suspense ever since."
"As soon as Santa Claus arrives," promised Jane, who had agreed with Shirley that no accompaniment of the traditional Christmas should be lacking, although there were no small children present to be edified by the sight of the patron saint. Older people, as she well knew, frequently enjoy a return to childish means of entertainment, and when Santa Claus, in full rig, walked into the room, she was not surprised to see the looks of greatest pleasure upon the faces of Grandfather and Grandmother Bell.
Peter made a capital Santa Claus, treating them all as children, and making speeches as he presented the gifts which brought forth peals of merriment. The gifts themselves were many and varied, from the mittens knit by Grandmother Bell's skilful fingers, to the silken scarfs and fans and foreign photographs which were the contributions of the travelled Townsends.
"Skees!" cried Rufus, going into contortions of ecstasy over Murray's present, and clumping up and down the room on the unwieldy articles. "Won't I get out to-morrow night on that hill back of the pond!"