The child breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m so glad I got born when I did. I shouldn’t have liked to be borned before you came. I’m half-past six, you know. Who filled your stocking?” she demanded the next moment, as the new idea occurred to her.
“Divil a wan I had to hang up whin I was a spalpeen; ’twas bare-futted an’ bare-legged I wint.”
“But Christmas,”—the little maid’s lip trembled,—“what did you do at Christmas?”
“’Twas like anny plain, ordinary iv’ry day to me, agra, an’ no differ; except that wanst in jest so often me mither hid a plum in the bit cake she was afther makin’ fer me, an’ I’d the joy av searchin’ it out mesilf, same as ye’d seek out a naydle in a hayrick. An’ toimes it was fat, an’ toimes ag’in ’twas like the shadder av itsilf; but glory be! I niver missed it. An’ ’twas so good, fat or lane, that I used to drame I’d give iv’ry child in the wurrld a cake all shtuffed wid plums whin I growed up—”
“That was what put it into your head to be Santa Claus.”
The man cast a sidelong glance at his companion’s eager face.
“S’pose so,” he muttered.
“But the star knew all along, and that’s why it danced and couldn’t keep still.” She stole her hand into the curve of his arm, and gave it a soft little squeeze. “Tell me ’bout that first time,” she coaxed.
“What first toime?”