CHAPTER X.
CHRISTMAS.
With the thought of the warm stable awaiting him at the other end of his journey, little Rocket stepped out so briskly that they were home in good time after all. Bella's thoughts and Tom's were far more perplexing ones, for they had to decide how they were to get their mysterious parcels out of the cart and out of sight without any one seeing them.
"I can get them out of the cart easy enough," said Tom, "but to get them into the house is another matter. Would it do to leave them in the shed all night?"
"It'll have to, it's my belief," said Bella perplexedly. "I think it's the best we can do, and then I'll try to go down for them and hide them upstairs before Margery wakes in the morning."
So she put the precious parcels in one of the round hampers, and covered them over with some of the waste cabbage leaves they had saved and brought back for the fowls.
"Are those for me?" Miss Hender asked, when she saw the leaves.
"Yes," said Tom calmly. "I'll carry them down and put basket and all in the tool-house for the night;" and he was gone before any one could stop him, and Bella, with a deep breath of relief, was able to think of other things with an easy mind.
It was splendid, they both thought, to come back and find their father awaiting them once more, glad to welcome them, and eager to hear all their doings. By the time Rocket had been taken home to his supper and bed, the afternoon had gone and darkness fallen, and then they all had tea by the light of the blazing fire in the kitchen, which was sweet with the mingled scents of the little Christmas tree and one of Bella's pots of Roman hyacinths, which she had given to her father. There was something of a festive air, too, about the little gathering. Father was home, Christmas was at hand, and they had earned enough that day to keep them all in comfort for another week. They had got in a store of coal and wood, the rent was ready in the rent-box, and their minds were free from debt or pressing need.