CHAPTER VIII.
A CRAZY CHRISTMAS.
“You dear little thing,” said Aunt Charlotte, coming into the room with Ken in her arms, but putting him down and taking up her naughty niece. “You’ve been getting homesick all by yourself this long afternoon. Where did you stay?”
“Stayed up-sta—irs,” sobbed Flaxie.
“In the cold? Why, darling, what made you?”
“You all went off and left me,” replied Flaxie, with a little tempest of tears.
Then auntie understood it all,—how this child, who was old enough to know better, had been rolling a little bit of a trouble over and over, till it had grown into a mountain and almost crushed her. And the mother-heart in Aunt Charlotte’s bosom ached for poor foolish Flaxie.
“She has added to her cold, and is feverish,” thought the good lady, sending for Nancy to bring some hot water in the tin bath-tub that was used for washing the children.