And, in a corner, Mrs. Granger was raging over the damaging imprint of two sticky hands on the delicate fabric of her costly gown. For her's had been the bulk that had stood between Susy and her "big girl," and Susy had been eating chocolate marshmallow cake with both hands!
Mrs. Granger had come to Gray Manor with the intention of coaxing Miss Gordon to spend Christmas at Wyckham, the Granger home. But, as she made ineffectual dabs at the greasy spots on her skirt with her silly little handkerchief, she put such a thought quite away from her mind.
"Brat!" she cried under her breath, angrily, and from the way she glared at Robin and Susy no one could have told which of the two she meant.
CHAPTER XVI
CHRISTMAS AT THE MANOR
Christmas without Jimmie was, for Robin, a thing not to think about. And from Beryl, inasmuch as that young lady affected a stoical indifference to the holiday, she could get little sympathy. Beryl had shocked her with the heresy: "Christmas is just for rich people, anyway."
"It is not. Oh, it isn't," Robin had cried in remonstrance. But she could not tell of her and Jimmie's happy Christ-days without giving way to the tears which, at the thought, scalded the backs of her eyes. It had not been alone the holly and pine of the shop windows, or the simple gifts Jimmie's loyal and more fortunate friends brought, or the usual merry feast that had made them happy; it had been a deep and beautiful understanding of the Infinite Love that had given the Christ-child to the world, that Love which surpassed even Jimmie's love for her or hers for Jimmie, and that was hers and everyone elses. She had felt it first when, a very little girl, she had gone, once, with Jimmie into the purple shadows of a great church, where the air was sweet with incense and vibrating with the muted notes of an organ. She had stood with Jimmie before a little cradle that had seemed beautiful with gold and precious colors but, when she looked again, was a humble thing of wood and straw, and what she had thought so bright was the radiance of candles and the reflection from the many-colored windows. Then she had looked at the cradle more closely and had found that it held a beautiful wax babe. When Jimmie tugged at her hand she had reluctantly turned away. At the same time a shabby old woman and a little boy, who had been kneeling nearby, arose, and the old woman and the little boy had smiled at her—a different smile and she had smiled back. On the way home Jimmie had explained to her that the Gift of the Christ-child was the great universal gift and belonged to everyone, the world over. She knew, then, why the shabby old woman had smiled—it was over the Gift they shared.
"Christmas is for everybody," she finished.