"Reminds me of the telephones we used to make out of tin boxes and linen thread. When we couldn't hear over the 'phone we'd run to the window and shout across the street. I could have gone to the Marshalls twice over, while I've been saving time by telephoning. Hello! Is that you, Mrs. Marshall? May I speak to Elaine a minute?"
It was not a very long wait this time. "Hello!" said a languid voice, not a Christmasy voice, by any means.
"Hello, Elaine. Going to be dreadfully busy this afternoon?"
"O, I guess not." Still the voice had a wilted sound. One knew instinctively that the mouth of the speaker drooped at the corners.
"I've got something to take over to the Dunns. I thought perhaps you'd go with me. And maybe you'd like to slip some little thing into the basket, a ribbon for one of the girls, or a package of nuts or something of that sort."
"All right," said Elaine, with a sufficiently long pause before her reply to give the impression that in point of fact it was all wrong. "I don't mind."
"We'll start about half-past three, I think. Then we'll be back before it begins to be dark. Thank you ever so much." Peggy was smiling as she hung up the receiver, and then, catching her mother's eye, her inward satisfaction boiled over in a chuckle.
"A little Christmas missionary work?" asked Mrs. Raymond, smiling too, for Peggy's pleasure in her diplomacy was infectious.
Peggy nodded. "Mother, you don't know how Elaine talks about Christmas. She says she wishes she could sleep right through it, and never wake up till everything was over. You see it is so different from every other Christmas Day she can remember."
"Of course it is, poor child."