“I’ll pay him yet for that remark about my obnoxious hair,” grinned Reddy, as the carol singers trooped across the lawn and into the house.
Mrs. Gray met her Christmas children with welcoming arms. “I am going to kiss every one of you,” she announced.
“We are willing,” assured David, and she was passed from one pair of arms to another, emerging from this wholesale embrace, flushed and laughing.
“You didn’t kiss me,” observed a plaintive voice from behind the portieres that divided the library from the hall. Hippy’s round face was thrust engagingly into view. He had slipped in the side door, unobserved.
“There he is, Reddy. How did he get in so quietly?” David took a vengeful step forward. The face disappeared.
“Just wait until I hang up my overcoat,” threatened Reddy.
“Don’t let him hang it up, Nora. If you value the safety of your husband, make him stand and hold it,” pleaded the plaintive voice.
“Here, Reddy, give me your hat and coat,” ordered Nora cruelly.
“Ha! I defy you.” Hippy suddenly bounced from behind the curtain into the midst of the group in the hall. “I would defy forty David Nesbits and fifty Reddy Brooks for a kiss from my fair lady.” He bowed before Mrs. Gray.
“Bless you, Hippy,” she said, as she kissed his fat cheek, “that was nicely said.”