"They've plugged it up, and I can't see a thing!"
"Serves you right; if you'd held your tongue they never would have known what you were about," was Frank's ungrateful answer.
A stifled giggle from the other side of the door caused a dead silence to pervade the breakfast-room for several minutes, while Neddy wriggled out of sight under the sofa as if to escape from the finger of scorn.
Suddenly Tom cried in a shrill whisper, "I've got it!" and pointed to a ventilator over the door.
A simultaneous rush of boys and chairs took place; but Tom claimed the rights of a discoverer, and, softly mounting an improvised ladder of tables and stools, he peered eagerly through the glass, while impatient hands plucked at his legs, and the pressure of the mob caused his perch to totter perilously.
The spectacle which he beheld would have touched the heart of any little girl, but to an unappreciative boy it possessed no charm, for it was only a doll's Christmas tree. For weeks, the young mammas had been making pretty things for their wooden, wax, or porcelain darlings, and it was excellent practice, since many a pair of hands that scorned patchwork and towels, labored patiently over small gowns, trimmed gay hats, and wrought wonders in worsted, without a sigh.
It really was a most delightful little tree, set in an Indian jar, snowed over with flour, garlanded with alternate festoons of cranberries and pop-corn, and every bough laden with such treasures that if dolls could stare any harder than they do, they certainly would have opened their painted eyes with amazement and joy. Such "darling" hats, and caps; such "sweet" gowns and cloaks; such "cunning" muffs and tippets! Dressing cases as perfect as grown-up ones, I assure you; mittens that must have been knit on darning-needles; shoes of colored kid fit for a doll's Cinderella, and sets of brass and bead jewelry that glittered splendidly. Wee bottles of perfume for waxen noses; tiny horns of comfits; travelling bags, and shawl straps, evidently worked by the fairies; and underclothes which I modestly forbear to describe, merely saying that very few of the seams were puckered, and the trimmings "perfectly lovely."
At the moment when Peeping Tom's profane eye beheld the innocent revel, the dolls were seated in a circle, their mammas standing behind them, while the happy little hostesses bestowed the gifts with appropriate remarks. It is needless to say that the dolls behaved beautifully, their cheeks glowing with pleasure as they returned thanks in voices so like those of their mothers that one couldn't tell the difference.
The tree was soon stripped, and then the chatter began again, for every thing must be tried on at once, and more than one doll who came in shabby clothes bloomed out in gorgeous array, or was made tidy for the winter.
"I'm so glad to get a worked flannel petticoat for my Jemima. Mamma was saying only yesterday that she didn't approve of show at the expense of comfort, and I knew she meant Jemmy, who hadn't a thing on but her pink silk dress and earrings," observed Mrs. Kitty, in a moral tone.