A Daughter of the Rich

by Mary E. Waller

But March was right by the margin of only a minute or two; for just as the merry crowd entered the house on their return from their errand of "goodwill," they heard Mr. Blossom drive the sleigh into the barn. In another moment Hazel had flung wide the door and was caught up into her father's arms.

In the midst of their cordial greetings there was a loud knock at the door. They all started at the sound, and Budd, who was nearest, opened it.

"Please, Budd, may I come in, too?" said a voice everyone recognized as the Doctor's.

Then the whole Blossom household lost their heads where they had lost their hearts the year before. Rose and Hazel and Cherry fairly smothered him with kisses; Budd wrung one hand, March gripped another; May clung to one leg, and the monster of a puppy contrived to get under foot, although he stood two feet ten.

Jack Sherrill, looking in at the window upon all this loving hominess, felt, somehow, physically and spiritually left out in the cold. "What a fool I was to come!" he said to himself. Nevertheless he carried out his part of the program by stepping up to the door and knocking. This time Mrs. Blossom opened it.

"Have you room for one more, Mrs. Blossom?" he said with an attempt at a smile, but looking sadly wistful, so wistful and lonely that Mary Blossom put out both hands without a word, and, somehow,--Jack, in thinking it over afterwards, never could tell how it happened so naturally--he was giving her a son's greeting, and receiving a mother's kiss in return.

In a moment Hazel's arms were around his neck;--"Oh, Jack, Jack! I 've got three of my own now; I 'm almost as rich as Rose!"

Rose, hearing her name, came forward with frank, cordial greeting, and May transferred her demonstrations of affection from the Doctor's trousers to Jack's; Cherry's curls bobbed and quivered with excitement when Jack claimed a kiss from "Little Sunbonnet," and received two hearty smacks in return; March took his travelling bag; Budd kept close beside him, and the puppy, who had been christened Tell, nosed his hand, and, sitting down on his haunches, pawed the air frantically until Jack shook hands with him, too.

By this time the wistful look had disappeared from Jack's eyes, and his handsome face was filled with such a glad light that the Doctor noticed it at once. He shook his head dubiously, with his eyebrows drawn together in a straight line over the bridge of his nose, and, from underneath, his keen eyes glanced from Jack to Rose and from Rose back again to Jack. Then his face cleared, and explanations were in order.

"Why, you see," the Doctor said to Mrs. Blossom, "my wife had to go South with her sister, and could not be at home for Christmas--the first we 've missed celebrating together since we were married--and when I found John was coming up to spend it with you, I couldn't resist giving myself this one good time. But Jack here has failed to give any satisfactory account of how or why he came to intrude his long person just at this festive time. I thought you were off at a Lenox house-party with the Seatons?" he said, quizzically.