Then the train puffed around the bend and slowed up to the station. And several hours later three very much flushed, very much excited, and very pretty young girls popped off the train at North Bend and straight into the arms of their doting families.
“Merry Christmas!” they cried to every one in general and no one in particular. “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Oh, isn’t it glorious to be at home!”
The boys arrived the next day, and they all had a great reunion at Billie’s home, where they exchanged presents and talked in hushed tones of what they hoped that Santa Claus would bring them—to-morrow! For this was Christmas Eve!
But the party broke up soon, and they all went to bed early so that they could get up at six o’clock the next morning—at the very latest.
Oh, the fun of anticipating and the joy of Christmas Day. First of all, the bulging stocking with its lumps of coal and pieces of carefully wrapped sugar with really pretty things stuck in between.
Then the mad rush for the Christmas tree and the admiring exclamations over its glittering beauty. And then—the opening of the gay, be-ribboned boxes. The laughter, the joy, the tears, as each little parcel disclosed something prettier or funnier or dearer than the last. It was all so wonderful that it was a pity it could not have lasted forever.
Then, after Christmas, one glorious, ecstatic week of fun that passed like a day. There were dances and parties and sleighrides and so many other festivities that there was hardly a minute of the day that was not accounted for.
It was not till the week was almost over that the girls thought penitently of the Haddons.
“I wonder,” said Billie, as she turned over and over in her fingers a ten dollar gold piece that had been a gift from an aunt, “what kind of Christmas poor little Peter has had.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Billie!” Laura replied a little impatiently, “what is the use of spoiling all our fun by bringing up the unhappiness of some one else? We can’t help it if the Haddons haven’t had as nice a Christmas as we have. We certainly have done all we could.”