“Another tree!” exclaimed the girls, in chorus.
“Same one dressed over; but wait and see. It’s twice the fun this was.”
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CHRISTMAS-TREE’S SECOND CROP.
The habits of even a short life-time are not easily changed; so before a single servant was astir in that luxurious household Marion had risen and dressed herself. Lily had no early-rising habits to contend with, and so slept peacefully on till Adèle came in to say that Mrs. Ashley wished to know if the young ladies required assistance in dressing and to tell them breakfast would be ready in half an hour.
Lily slipped her feet into a pair of slippers and came into Marion’s room in a half-awake condition.
“Why, you early bird!” she exclaimed, “I do believe you got up to gloat over your new breastpin.”
Marion laughed and blushed, for it was true that she had been contemplating her first piece of jewelry for a long time with great content.
“I envy you,” said Lily, “not the pin, but not having your ‘first times’ till you were old enough to realize them. I thought of it last night, when your eyes were shining like diamonds and you looked like a peri who had squeezed into Eden after long shivering at the gate, like the one in Moore’s poems. Now, my dear little rosy-round, daddy isn’t frightfully rich like Mr. Ashley, but then I’ve always had more trinkets and things than I needed, and I don’t begin to have the fun out of them that you have had already over your one poor little breastpin.”
“O, it isn’t poor or little!” exclaimed shocked Marion. “It is as pretty a pin as any of the girls had at school.”