"It is only I, mother. I thought I'd rather come home after all."
"You, Ted," she replied;—"you, and alone?"
"Yes, mother. I thought somehow you'd like better to have me, so I just ran home."
"And weren't you frightened, Ted?" she said a little anxiously, but with a glad feeling at her heart; "weren't you afraid to come through the lonely streets, and the road, more lonely still, outside the town? For it is very dark, and everything shut up—weren't you afraid?"
"Oh no, mother—not a bit," he replied, "only just when I had left all the houses I did walk a little faster, I think. But I'm so glad I came, if you're pleased, mother."
And when his mother had opened the door and let him in and given him a good-night kiss even more loving than usual, Ted went to bed and to sleep with a light happy heart, and his mother, as she too fell asleep, thanked God for her boy.
I must now, I think, children, ask you to pass over with me nearly a whole year of Ted's life. These holidays ended, came, by slow degrees that year, the always welcome spring; then sunny summer again, a bright and happy summer this, though spent at my little friends' own home instead of at the Skensdale farm-house; then autumn with its shortening days and lengthening evenings, gradually shortening and lengthening into winter again; till at last Christmas itself, like the familiar figure of an old friend, whom, just turning the corner of the road where we live, we descry coming to visit us, was to be seen not so far off.
Many things had happened during this year, which, though all such simple things, I should like to tell you of but for the old restrictions of time and space. And indeed I have to thank you for having listened to me so long, for I blame myself a little for not having told you more plainly at the beginning that it was not a regular "story" I had to tell you in the "carrots" coloured book this year, but just some parts, simple and real, of a child-life that I love to think of. And I would have liked to leave it here—for some reasons that is to say—or I would have liked to tell how Ted grew up into such a man as his boyhood promised—honest-hearted, loving, and unselfish, and as happy as a true Christmas child could not but be. But, dears, I cannot tell you this, for it was not to be so. Yet I am so anxious that the little book I have tried to write in such a way that his happy life and nature should be loved by other children—I am so anxious that the ending of this little book should not seem to you a sad one, at Christmas-time too of all times, that I find it a little difficult to say what has to be said. For in the truest sense the close of my book is not sad. I will just tell it simply as it really was, trusting that you will know I love you all too well to wish to throw any cloud over your bright faces and thoughts.
Well, as I said, this year had brought many little events, some troubles of course, and much good, to our Ted. He had grown a good deal taller, and thinner too, and he never, even as a tiny toddler, could have been called fat! But he was well and strong, and had made good progress at school and good progress too in other ways. He was getting on famously at cricket and football, and was a first-rate croquet-player, for croquet was then in fashion. And the museum had not been neglected; it had really grown into a very respectable and interesting museum, so that not only Ted's own people and near friends were pleased to see it, but even his parents' friends, and sometimes others, again, who happened to be visiting them, would ask the little collector to admit them. I really think it would be a good thing if more boys took to having museums; it would be a good thing for them, for nothing can be more amusing and interesting too, and a very good thing for their friends, especially in bad weather or in holiday-time, when now and then the hours hang heavily on these young people's hands, and one is inclined to wish that some fancy work for boys could be invented. Ted's museum had grown very much, and was always a great resource for him and for Cissy too, for, to tell the truth, her tastes were rather boyish.