But Rob did not answer. He was not a very generous boy, and all he was thinking of now was his own pleasure.
"Say, Nell," he cried, "you won't get up, will you, till I can? Don't: I'll think you're real unkind if you do."
"No, no, Rob," said Nelly. "Indeed I won't. I don't care. It will be all the longer to think about it, and that's almost the best part of it." And Nelly threw her arms around Rob's neck and kissed him.
"It's too bad, you darling," she said, "you have to be sick on Christmas-day. I won't have any pudding, either, if you don't want me to."
Mrs. March was an Englishwoman, and had lived in England till she was married, and she always had on Christmas-day a real English plum-pudding with brandy turned over it, and set on fire just before the pudding was brought to the table, so that when it came in the blue and red and yellow flames were all blazing up high over it, and the waitress had to turn her head away not to breathe the heat from the flames.
You would have thought it would have made Rob ashamed to have Nelly propose to go without pudding because he could not eat any, but I don't think it did. All he said was,—
"Don't be a goose, Nell. That's quite different."
Just before they went to sleep, Sarah, the cook, went past their door, and Nelly called to her:—
"Sarah, mamma says we mustn't get up to-morrow morning till the house is very warm. Couldn't you get up very early and start the furnace fire?"
"Why, yes, Miss Nelly, I can do that easy enough, sure; but where'll you be sleeping?"