“Let Darkie be the Black Prince,” said Nicholas. “When you wave your stick he’ll jump for it, and then you can pretend to fight with him.”
“It’s not a stick, it’s a sword,” said Robin. “However, Darkie may be the Black Prince.”
“And what’s Pax to be?” asked Dora; “for you know he will come if Darkie does, and he’ll run in before everybody else too.”
“Then he must be the Fool,” said Robin, “and it will do very well, for the Fool comes in before the rest, and Pax can have his red coat on, and the collar with the little bells.”
CHRISTMAS EVE.
Robin thought that Christmas would never come. To the Captain and his wife it seemed to come too fast. They had hoped it might bring reconciliation with the old man, but it seemed they had hoped in vain.
There were times now when the Captain almost regretted the old bachelor’s bequest. The familiar scenes of her old home sharpened his wife’s grief. To see her father every Sunday in church, with marks of age and infirmity upon him, but with not a look of tenderness for his only child, this tried her sorely.
“She felt it less abroad,” thought the Captain. “An English home in which she frets herself to death is, after all, no great boon.”
Christmas eve came.
“I’m sure it’s quite Christmas enough now,” said Robin. “We’ll have ‘The Peace-Egg’ to-night.”