CHAPTER XXVIII.
Scraps of Morocco and talk.
Left alone in the strange room with the flickering fire, how quickly Ellen's thoughts left Ventnor and flew over the sea! They often travelled that road, it is true, but now perhaps the very home-look of everything, where yet she was not at home, might have sent them. There was a bitter twinge or two, and for a minute Ellen's head drooped. "To-morrow will be Christmas-eve last Christmas-eve oh, Mamma!"
Little Ellen Chauncey soon came back, and sitting down beside her on the foot of the bed, began the business of undressing.
"Don't you love Christmas time?" said she; "I think it's the pleasantest in all the year; we always have a houseful of people, and such fine times. But then in summer I think that's the pleasantest. I s'pose they're all pleasant. Do you hang up your stocking?"
"No," said Ellen.
"Don't you! why, I always did, ever since I can remember. I used to think, when I was a little girl, you know," said she, laughing "I used to think that Santa Claus came down the chimney, and I used to hang up my stocking as near the fire- place as I could; but I know better than that now; I don't care where I hang it. You know who Santa Claus is, don't you?"
"He's nobody," said Ellen.
"Oh, yes, he is he's a great many people he's whoever gives you anything. My Santa Claus is Mamma, and Grandpapa, and Grandmamma, and Aunt Sophia, and Aunt Matilda; and I thought I should have had Uncle George, too, this Christmas, but he couldn't come. Uncle Howard never gives me anything. I am sorry Uncle George couldn't come; I like him the best of all my uncles."
"I never had anybody but Mamma to give me presents," said Ellen, "and she never gave me much more at Christmas than at other times."