Merle was shocked. “Will they cry?”
“I don’t suppose so. My sister says they’re extremely good children and will do anything to help their mother.”
“Maybe they’ll hang them up anyway, and they’ll be empty?” Merle said, wide-eyed.
But the governess had lost interest in the subject, as grown-ups so often and so maddeningly did, and was manicuring her pretty nails, and humming, so Merle had to abandon it for the moment.
However, she thought about it continually, and after dinner she said suddenly and daringly to her mother:
“The Rutledge children’s father is sick, and they aren’t going to hang up their stockings! Miss Frothingham said so!”
When this was said, she and Miss Frothingham and her mother were all in the attic. Merle had not been there for weeks, nor her mother for months, and it was enchanting to the child to find herself bustling about, so unexpectedly in this exciting atmosphere, which, if it was not typically Christmassy, was at least unusual. It had come about suddenly, as did much that affected her mother’s movements.
The doctor had arrived home at half-past four, and Miss Frothingham had lost no time in reminding her that the promised bundle for the New Year’s rummage sale for some charity was to have been ready this evening. Doctor Madison had said—did she remember?—that she had any amount of old clothing to dispose of.
“Oh, that attic is full of it!” Merle’s mother had said, wearily. “You know this was my grandmother’s house, and goodness only knows the rubbish that is up there! I’ve meant to get at it all some time—I couldn’t do it in her lifetime. What time is it? Suppose we go up there and get a start?”
There was twilight in the attic, and outside the dormer windows the snow was falling—falling. Merle performed a little pirouette of sheer ecstasy when they mounted the stairs. Her mother lighted the lights in a business-like fashion.