The Christmas card under inspection has been discovered by Jenny upon the floor of the room where Mr. Jack Kirke has spent the night, dropped there probably in the hurried start of the morning. It has evidently been a very precious thing in its owner’s eyes, this card; for it is wrapped in a little piece of white tissue paper and enclosed in an unsealed envelope. Jenny has forthwith delivered this treasure over to Ruby, who, seated upon the edge of the verandah, is now busily scrutinizing it.
“Jack, from May,” is written upon the back of the card in a large girlish scrawl. That is all; there is no date, no love or good wishes sent, only those three words: “Jack, from May;” and in front of the card, beneath the glittering snow scene and intermingling with the scarlet wreath, the Christmas benediction: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
“Who’s May, I wonder,” Ruby murmurs again, almost jealously. “P’raps another little girl in Scotland he never told me about. I wonder why he didn’t speak about her.”
Ruby does not know that the “May” of the carefully cherished card is a little girl of whom Jack but rarely speaks, though she lives in his thoughts day and night. Far away in Scotland a blue-eyed maiden’s heart is going out in longing to the man who only by his absence had proved to the friend of his childhood how much she loved him. Her heart is in sunny Australia, and his in bonnie Scotland, all for love each of the other.
Having failed, even with the best intentions to discover who May is, Ruby turns her attention to the picture and the text.
“‘Glory to God in the highest,’” the little girl reads—“that’s out of the Bible—‘and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ I wonder what ‘good will’ means? I s’pose p’raps it just means to be kind.”
All around the child is the monotonous silence of the Australian noon, unbroken save by the faint silvery wash of the creek over the stones on its way to the river, and the far-away sound of old Hans’ axe as he “rings” the trees. To be “kind,” that is what the Christmas text means in Ruby’s mind, but there is no one here to be “kind” to.
“And of course that card would be made in Scotland, where there are lots of people to be kind to,” the little girl decides thoughtfully.
She is gazing out far away over the path which leads to the coast. Beyond that lies the sea, and beyond the sea Scotland. What would not Ruby give to be in bonnie Scotland just now!
The child rises and goes through the house and across the courtyard to the stables. The stables are situated on the fourth side of the quadrangle; but at present are but little used, as most of the horses are grazing at their own sweet will in the adjoining paddock just now.