“I like you, I like you,” cried the little boy, and tucked his hand into hers, jumping along with both feet in short flying leaps. “Come here! I’ll show you what to buy for him, I’ll show you; that! Oh, there’s my papa beckoning to me!”
He dropped her hand and disappeared like a flash in the crowd by the stairs.
“Well,” said Violet to herself, staring in front of her. “Well—why not?”
“I couldn’t get here a minute sooner—I had to lie down after I got them all out of the house.”
Mrs. Tom, arriving late at the paternal mansion on Christmas afternoon, was taking off her wraps in the hall as she looked in at the circle of sisters-in-law sitting around the fire in the drawing-room, warm with the smell of cedar, and bedecked with scarlet holly. Through the open doorway beyond the mahogany table, set with the old white-and-gold china, showed promise of good things to come.
“How cozy you all look in here—but where are the others?” asked Mrs. Tom.
Miss Clara spread out her hands with a gesture of dismay, belied by her beaming face.
“Well, you’ll never guess—every man and boy is up-stairs with father, trying to run that crazy engine Violet sent him; it’s one of those dreadful electrical things. If I’d had the remotest idea what was in the box—and she never even told Arthur! You can’t get one of them out of that room, except to—— Listen to that!”
A boy’s footsteps came hurtling down the back stairs, and a moment later an excited voice called:
“Will it work?”