For twenty minutes they talked long and earnestly. Carmencita's list of names and number of pennies were gone over again and again, and when at last she got up to go the perplexities of indecision and adjustment were mainly removed, and she sighed with satisfaction.
"I'm very much obliged to you for helping me fix it." The piece of paper was carefully pinned to the inside of the coat. "I'm not going to get anything but Father's present to-night. I won't have to go to school to-morrow, and I want the buying to last as long as possible. Isn't it funny the way Christmas makes you feel?"
Carmencita's hands came suddenly together, and, pressing them on her breast, her eyes grew big and shining. Standing first on one foot and then on the other, she swayed slightly forward, then gave a leap in the air.
"I can't help it, Miss Frances, I really can't! It's something inside me—something that makes me wish I was all the world's mother! And I'm so squirmy and thrilly and shivery, thinking of the things I'd do if I could, that sometimes I'm bound to jump—just bound to! I'm almost sure something nice is going to happen. Did you ever feel that way, Miss Frances?"
"I used to feel that way." The clear dark eyes for a moment turned from the eager ones of the child. "It's a very nice way to feel. When one is young—though perhaps it is not so much youth as hope in the heart, and love, and—"
"I don't love everybody. I loathe Miss Cattie Burns. She's the very old dev— I promised Father I wouldn't say even a true mean thing about anybody for a month, and I've done it twice! I'd much rather love people, though. I love to love! It makes you feel so nice and warm and homey. If I had a house I'd have everybody I know—I mean all the nice everybodies—to spend Christmas with me. Isn't it funny that at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for—for— I don't know what for, exactly, but it's something you don't mind so much not having at other times."
Carmencita's arms opened to their full length, then circled slowly, and her hands crossed around her neck. "It's the time to wipe out and forget things, Father says. It's the home-time and the heart-time and—" In her voice was sudden anxiety. "You are not going away for Christmas are you, Miss Frances?"
"Not for Christmas eve." She hesitated. "I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do on Christmas day. My people live in different places and far apart. It is all very different from what it used to be. When one is alone—"
She stopped abruptly and, going over to the window, looked down on the street below; and Carmencita, watching, saw the face turned from hers twist in sudden pain. For a moment she stood puzzled and helpless. Something she did not understand was troubling, something in which she could not help. What was it?
"You couldn't be alone at Christmas, Miss Frances." Slowly she came toward the window, and shyly her hand slipped into that of her friend. "There are too many wanting you. Father and I can't give fine presents or have a fine dinner, but there wouldn't be words in which to tell you how thankful we'd be if you'd spend it with us. Would you—would you come to us, Miss Frances?"