“Nonsense! You only think that because you are so little,” answered Ethel, from the height of her three years more of experience. “You forget, but I can remember. We had a finer house ourselves, before poor papa died. There are plenty of them, only we’re so poor we don’t see them.”
“Oh, it’s good to be that little girl!” cried Annie. “See how pretty her dress is, and how her hair curls; and she’ll have lots of presents off that Christmas-tree.”
“So should we, if we had papa,” Ethel answered gravely. “Mamma, when we get up to heaven, do you think papa will know we’re his little girls?”
“I’m sure he will,” Mrs. Vanderheyden answered; and then she rose wearily. “It’s all done,” she said, as she shook out the lovely little robe into which she had wrought so many patient stitches. “I cannot carry it home just yet, I am so tired; I must lie down first; but you shall have a good dinner to-morrow, my darlings.”
The children had seen her very tired before, and they didn’t think much about it when she groped her way to a bed in the corner and lay down, drawing the scant bed-clothes up over her. They stood at the window still, and watched the merry children opposite, until at last a servant came and pulled down the curtains and shut away from them the Christmas-tree, with all its gleaming lights, and the boy and girl, who were dancing round it to some gay tune which their mother played.
Then Ethel and Annie began to realize that they were cold and hungry and the room was dark. Ethel lit a candle. The fire was nearly out, but she would not make another till morning.
“I won’t wake up mamma,” she said, with the premature thoughtfulness that characterized her; “she’s so tired. We’ll just have supper, and then I’ll hear you say ‘Our Father,’ and we’ll get to bed, and in the morning it will be Christmas.”
Some vague promise of good was in the very word: Ethel did not know what would come, but surely Christmas would not be like other days. “Supper” was the rest of the bread. And then the two little creatures knelt down together and said their well-known prayers, and I think “Our Father” heard, for their sleep was just as sweet as if they had been in the warm, soft nest of the children over the way, tucked in with eider down. Through the long evening hours they slept,—through the solemn midnight, when the clear, cold Christmas stars looked down, just as they had looked centuries ago when the King of Glory, Himself a little child, lay asleep in an humble manger in Judea. Nothing troubled their quiet slumber until the sunshine of the Christmas morning broke through their dingy windows, and the day had begun.
“It must be ever so late,” said Ethel, rubbing her sleepy eyes, “and mamma isn’t awake yet. But she was so tired. You lie still, Annie, and I’ll build the fire, and when she wakes up she’ll find it all done.”