“Certainly. Or better still, if you’ll find out what he would like, I’ll let you make him a present.”
“Youse payin’ for it?” anxiously questioned the boy.
“Of course.”
“Dat’s Jim Dandy!”
Miss Durant recurred to this offer twice in the succeeding week, but to her surprise, found Swot’s apparent enthusiasm over the gift had entirely cooled, and his one object was a seeming desire to avoid all discussion of it.
“Don’t you want to give him something, or haven’t you found out what he wants?” she was driven to ask.
“Oh, dat’s all right. Don’t youse tire youself ’bout dat,” was his mysterious reply. Nor could she extract anything more satisfactory.
It was a very different Swot McGarrigle who was helped into Miss Durant’s carriage by the doctor on Christmas eve from the one who had been lifted out at the hospital some six weeks before. The wizened face had filled out into roundness, and the long-promised new clothes, donned for the first time in honor of the event, even more transformed him; so changed him, in fact, that Constance hesitated for an instant in her welcome, in doubt if it were he.
“I have the tree in my own room, because I wanted all the fun to ourselves,” she explained, as she led the way upstairs, “and downstairs we should almost certainly be interrupted by callers, or something. But before you go, Dr. Armstrong, I want you to meet my family, and of course they all want to see Swot.”
It was not a large nor particularly brilliant tree, but to Swot it was everything that was beautiful. At first he was afraid to approach, but after a little Constance persuaded him into a walk around it, and finally tempted him, by an artful mention of what was in one of the larger packages at the base, to treat it more familiarly. Once the ice was broken, the two were quickly seated on the floor, Constance cutting strings, and Swot giving shouts of delight at each new treasure. Presently, in especial joy over some prize, the boy turned to show it to the doctor, to discover that he was standing well back, watching, rather than sharing, in the pleasure of the two; and, as the little chap discovered the aloofness, he leaned over and whispered something to the girl.