He took the wreaths from her. "You are like the spirit of Christmas in your green gown."
"This?" She was wearing the green velvet—with a low collar of lace. "Oh, I've had this for ages, but I like it——" She broke off to say, wistfully, "It seems as if you ought to come down—as if up here you'd be lonely."
Susan Jenks, hanging the mistletoe over the door, was out of range of their voices.
"I am lonely," Roger said, "but now with my little tree, I shall forget everything but your kindness."
"Don't you love Christmas?" Mary asked him. "It's such a friendly time, with everybody thinking of everybody else. I had to hunt a lot before I found the wax angel. It needed such a little one—but I always want one on my tree. When I was a child, mother used to tell me that the angel was bringing a message of peace and good will to our house."
"If the little angel brings me your good will, I shall feel that he has performed his mission."
"Oh, but you have it," brightly. "We are all so glad you are here. Even Barry, and Barry hated the idea at first of our having a lodger. But he likes you."
"And I like Barry," he said. "He is youth—incarnate."
"He's a dear," she agreed. Then a shadow came into her eyes. "But he's such a boy, and—and he's spoiled. Everybody's too good to him. Mother was—and father, though father tried not to be. And Leila is, and Constance—and Aunt Isabelle excuses him, and even Susan Jenks."
Susan Jenks, having hung all the wreaths, had departed, and was not there to hear this mention of her shortcomings.