“I might go for a few days, Hilary. Wouldn’t it be fun! I’ll write and see if I can. But I, too, must be with the folks on Christmas Day. Dick will be at home, and Father, especially, can’t do without me. It may be, too, that my married sister and the kiddies can come.”
“All right, Lilian,” said Hilary gleefully, clapping her hands. “We’ll count on you for a few days anyhow. Then I thought that I’d like to ask Isabel and Virgie to go home with us. Isabel looked sort of wistful when I talked about having Lilian, and while I suppose her family might want her on Christmas Day, perhaps she could have a few days in the city and enjoy some Christmas shopping as I did with you in New York last year, Cathalina. Virgie, of course, can scarcely manage to go so far home. The only drawback is that I don’t know about asking Olivia. There’s plenty of room in the parsonage, though, even with our big family.”
“Avalon is going to take Olivia home with her, Hilary,” said Cathalina. “I heard her ask her the other day, and she accepted gratefully. Avalon has been very much attracted by Olivia. They are really more alike than Avalon and Isabel.”
“Yes, that is so,” said Lilian, “and Isabel and Virgie seem to love to be together. It will be lovely of you, Hilary, to give them both a good time.”
“I like them both and it would be so forlorn for Virgie to stay here. I don’t know whether Isabel could take her home with her or not.”
“I guess the girls that do stay here have a pretty good time,—but it isn’t like a home!”
“We’ll have to go all alone, Betty,” said Cathalina. “Betty has to trot right home, too.”
“Isn’t it a wonderful night, girls?” said Hilary, moving over to the window. “There isn’t a bit of wind and it isn’t very cold, and that gentle soft snow falling again! But I’m rather glad it did not come when we were out riding this afternoon.”
The other girls followed Hilary and sat in the window seat for a little while, looking out at the dim light and the veil of snow which was shrouding the trees and bushes with a fresh mantle.
Some hours later, while youthful heads rested on comfortable pillows and dreams of sleigh-bells, snowy roads and meadows mingled with visions of Christmas celebrations and home folks, there came a sudden clang, clang, clang of the fire gong!