Her eyes sparkled.
“Then I’ll ask Nana,” she said. “An’ if she says I may hang them, I will. But one,” she added, conscientiously, “has a teeny, weeny hole in the toe. Do you think he would mind that?”
He reassured her on this point, and turned to the nurse, who was now wide awake and absorbed in a novel. The car was brilliantly lighted, and the passengers were beginning to respond to the first dinner call.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I’ve taken a great fancy to your little charge, and I want your help to carry out a plan of mine. I have suggested to Hope that she hang up her stockings tonight. I have every reason to believe that Santa Claus will get on this train at Buffalo. In fact,” he added, smiling, “I mean to telegraph him.”
The nurse hesitated a moment. He drew his card-case from his pocket and handed her one of the bits of pasteboard it contained.
“I have no evil designs,” he added, cheerfully. “If you are a New-Yorker you may possibly know who I am.”
The woman’s face lit up as she read the name. She turned toward him impulsively, with a very pleasant smile.
“Indeed I do, doctor,” she said. “Who does not? Dr. Abbey sent for you last week,” she added, “for a consultation over the last case I had—this child’s mother. But you were out of town. We were all so disappointed. It seems strange that we should meet now.”
“Patient died?” asked the physician, with professional brevity.
“Yes, doctor.”