“It isn’t much, but I hope you’ll like it. Yes, we almost ought to be with Grandma tomorrow, but you see she is going away herself. She’s already gone. They’re packing her off to Florida for her own good, though some one is with her. Well, Merry Christmas, Carolyn, and I’ll never forget you. Couldn’t if I tried!”
Excited and hungry, the Lee children reached home for a late lunch together. Dick and Doris “gabbled” so fast Amy Lou couldn’t tell a thing, she said, and they had had such a beautiful Christmas morning at their school. Amy Lou almost felt hurt that her mother had gone to the high school instead, or that she could not have gone with her; but Mrs. Lee reminded her that she had visited her school when they had their “great Christmas program” and Amy Lou had “spoken a piece,” for that was what they called it in the old days when she was a little girl.
“We read things,” importantly said Amy Lou, “or have a ‘number.’” After that she took her dolls into the front room to play school and stood up for half an hour singing all about “good Saint Nick” with an “Oh, oh, oh, who wouldn’t go?” and the rest of it, varied with “Jingle Bells,” “Holy Night,” and songs new and old, learned at school and Sunday school, where music made an especial appeal to little Amy Lou.
“She is entertained for the next hour,” said Mrs. Lee, as she and Betty cleared the table after lunch. The little maid, who had been baking and cooking all morning, was excused for the afternoon and evening, but would come to help with the Christmas dinner.
“And we have an invitation for the evening, Betty. The countess said she had spoken to you.”
“Yes’m. Are we going?”
“Yes. I scarcely thought at first that I could manage about Amy Lou, since Lena ought to have her evening this time; but the countess wanted us to bring her and thinks that she ‘will enjoy it.’ I was quite surprised, but the countess said that she would appreciate our coming, that it was not like a regular invitation to a party, just a sudden wanting to have good friends there. Grandma Ferris is not so well, Betty.”
“Oh! Will you mind, Mother?”
“No. If I am needed anywhere, that is where I want to be. But be sure not to worry, Betty. Christmas Eve must be a beautiful time and if Grandmother Ferris should slip away, it will only be a homecoming.”
“Funny she wants you Mumsy, when she has so many older friends.” But Betty said this with an affectionate smile. It was not new that her mother should be wanted when people were in trouble. Well, Lucia wanted her; perhaps she could be like her mother some day! But oh, what a lovely time Christmas was. And wouldn’t Amy Lou love the doll they had for her! She was glad Amy Lou liked dolls. She still did herself, though she had stopped playing with them—oh, very long ago, it seemed.