As Alice came up with a quick step and knelt down before her, Ellen sprang to her neck, and they held each other very fast indeed. John walked up and down the room. Presently he stopped before them.
"All's well again," said Alice, "and we are going in to tea."
He smiled and held out his hand, which Ellen took, but he would not leave the library, declaring they had a quarter of an hour still. So they sauntered up and down the long room, talking of different things, so pleasantly, that Ellen near forgot her troubles. Then came in Miss Sophia to find them, and then Mr. Marshman, and Marianne to call them to tea; so the going into the drawing-room was not half so bad as Ellen thought it would be.
She behaved very well; her face was touchingly humble that night; and all the evening she kept fast by either Alice or John, without budging an inch. And as little Ellen Chauncey and her cousin George Walsh chose to be where she was, the young party was quite divided; and not the least merry portion of it was that mixed with the older people. Little Ellen was half beside herself with spirits; the secret of which, perhaps, was the fact, which she several times in the course of the evening whispered to Ellen as a great piece of news, that "it was Christmas eve!"
CHAPTER XXIX.
Stockings, to which the "Bas Bleu" was nothing.
Christmas morning was dawning gray, but it was still far from broad daylight, when Ellen was awakened. She found little Ellen Chauncey pulling and pushing at her shoulders, and whispering "Ellen! Ellen!" in a tone that showed a great fear of waking somebody up. There she was, in nightgown and nightcap, and barefooted, too, with a face brimfull of excitement, and as wide awake as possible. Ellen roused herself in no little surprise, and asked what the matter was.
"I am going to look at my stocking," whispered her visitor; "don't you want to get up and come with me? it's just here in the other room; come! don't make any noise."
"But what if you should find nothing in it?" said Ellen, laughingly, as she bounded out of bed.
"Ah, but I shall, I know; I always do never fear. Hush! step ever so softly I don't want to wake anybody."