"I think that's a compliment. And speaking of your mother, Beryl Lynch, we have just time to wash our hands and faces and change our dresses before she comes. Oh, hasn't this day simply flown? And hasn't it been nice, after all? Isn't Harkness darling—look at him." For Harkness, his head on one side, a sprig of holly over one ear where Robin had put it, was surveying the effect of an angel which Robin had made of bright tissue paper and which he had carefully hung by the heels.
"That kite looks as real as can be, Missy."
Giggling, the girls rushed away to make ready for what Robin declared (though she had been much hurt by Dale's refusing to come) the nicest part of Christmas.
Belowstairs Mrs. Budge was directing Chloe with the last touches of the Christmas feast.
"That's the prettiest cake I ever saw if I do say so," she cried, patting the round cherry which adorned the centre of the gaily frosted cake. Then, lest she grow cheerful, she drew a long sigh from the depths of her bosom. "But, cake or no cake, I never thought I'd live to feed Mill persons, coming to our table like the best people. Things plain common. It ain't like the old days—it ain't."
"The old days are old days, Hannah Budge," rebuked Harkness, who had come into the kitchen. "Mebbe our little lydy's ways aren't our ways but it isn't so bad hearing the young voices and you'll admit, Mrs. Budge, that that's a fine cake and there'd be no cake if Missy wasn't here, now, won't you?"
"I haven't time for your philosophizing, Timothy Harkness. With things at sixes and sevens I have enough to do!" But Mrs. Budge's tone had softened. She had not made a Christmas cake (at sixteen Hannah Budge had taken the prize at the County Agricultural Exhibit for the finest decorated cake, and she had never forgotten it) since Master Christopher the Third had left them. And she had enjoyed hearing young voices and eager steps in the old house and had caught herself that very morning, as she helped Chloe stuff the turkey, singing:
"Oh, com-m-me let 'tus a-dor-r-re Him."
Chloe's last delectable dish for the dinner eaten, Harkness drew back the folding doors to reveal the Christmas tree in the conservatory. And Robin, waiting for Mrs. Lynch's "oh" of admiration, gave vent herself to a delighted cry of surprise for, at the foot of the tree, so still as to seem a graven image, sat little Susy, cross-legged, staring in wrapt contentment at the bright ornaments.
"Susy, you darling, where in the world did you drop from?" Robin rushed to her and knelt at her side.