From Mrs. Ashley Lily received a gold bangle, and Marion a simple but extremely pretty gold and garnet breastpin, which quite took her breath away, it seemed so magnificent.
Mr. Ashley kept up the farce of not being able to discover any remembrances for Katie till that young lady became quite impatient. Then he handed her a carefully wrapped-up diary with an elegant exterior and hopelessly blank interior. She received it with a comical little gesture, for it meant that her mother expected her to continue the daily record that she had pursued for four years.
There was a gold thimble for Katie from her sister-in-law, a bewitching fan from Mrs. Clifford, and lovely “bits of travel,” as Mr. Ashley called the gifts from the absent sisters and brothers, who sent carvings from Sorrento, silver from Nuremberg, laces from Paris, and specialties from other points to all at home.
Then Mr. Ashley ceremoniously presented his youngest daughter with the prettiest pocket-book his researches among the shops could unearth.
“It would have been a diamond ring, Katie. I mean to say it was a diamond ring,” he said, mournfully, “but your mother made me take it back to Tiffany, because you are too young, she says. So try to get older, my child, and I will reward you with precious stones.”
Katie laughed and admired her father’s gift, remarking with some philosophy that she’d rather have it than a ring, for she could have the comfort of using it, and if she had had the ring mamma would not have let her wear it till she was out of school.
“But you haven’t examined the lining,” Mr. Ashley said, anxiously, after nodding approvingly at her manner of receiving his gift.
The “lining” was a check, and Katie, seeing its highly respectable amount, flew at her father in a transport. He retreated before her rush in mock terror, but on being caught returned her hug with interest, begging her in a loud whisper not to reveal the amount of her check to any one.
Katie’s good sense was getting the better of the vanity and bragging that the girls at school used to find objectionable in her, and, true to some new resolutions she had been making, she followed her father’s jocose request and told no one but her mother the amount of her gift.
“I knew I should get some money,” she said that night after the girls had gone up to her room, “so I ran pretty deeply in debt for things for mamma’s tree to-morrow.”