"You are so comforting, Marjorie," sighed Constance. "I'll throw all my cares to the winds and keep sunny all day if I can."
"I must go now." They entered the little gray house again, just in time to hear remonstrative squeaks from the E string of the diminutive violin, blended with disheartened moans from the A and growls of protest from the G string.
"How did you like that?" inquired Charlie, calmly.
"It was very noisy," criticised Constance.
"It was a very hard passage to play," explained the embryo musician, soberly.
"It seems to have been," laughed Marjorie.
"That is what Johnny says when he doesn't pay attention and makes a mistake on the fiddle," confided Charlie.
Constance's sad look vanished at this naive assertion. "He imitates father and Uncle John in everything," she explained. "He will have played his way through all the music in the house before to-morrow night—most of it upside down, too."
"I'd love to stay longer, but I promised to stop at Macy's and we have our dinner at one o'clock. I wish you could come, too, but I know you'd rather be at home. Thank you again for the hemstitched handkerchiefs. I don't see how you found the time to make them."
"Thank you for the lovely hand-embroidered blouse and all Charlie's things," reminded Constance. "I hope we'll spend many, many more Christmases together."