The presents are done up according to custom, packages of every shape and size, but all in white paper and tied with red ribbon, and all marked for somebody with somebody else's best love. They all fall to opening, and the babies' shouts are not the only ones to be heard.
Passers-by smile indulgently at the racket, remembering that all the Browers are home for Christmas, and the Browers were ever a jovial company.
Peggy gazes at her gifts quietly, but with shining eyes—little gold cuff pins from Hazen, just like Arna's; a set of furs from Mabel and Ben; but she likes Arna's gift best of all, a complete set of her favourite author.
But much as they would like to linger about the Christmas tree, Peggy and her mother, at least, must remember that the dishes must be washed and the beds made, and that the family must get ready for church. Peggy does not go to church, and nobody dreams how much she wants to go. She loves the Christmas music. No hymn rings so with joy as:
Jerusalem triumphs, Messiah is king.
The choir sings it only once a year, on the Christmas morning. Besides, her chum Esther will be at church, and Peggy has been too busy to go to see her since she came home from boarding-school for the holidays. But somebody must stay at home, and that somebody who but Peggy? Somebody must baste the turkey and prepare the vegetables and take care of the babies.
Peggy is surprised to find how difficult it is to combine dinner-getting with baby-tending. When she opens the oven-door, there is Minna's head thrust up under her arm, the inquisitive little nose in great danger by reason of sputtering gravy.
"Minna," protests Peggy, "you mustn't eat another bit of candy!" and Minna opens her mouth in a howl, prolonged, but without tears and without change of colour. Robin joins in, he does not know why. Peggy is a doting aunt, but an honest one. She is vexed by a growing conviction that Mabel's babies are sadly spoiled. Peggy is ashamed of herself; surely she ought to be perfectly happy playing with Minna and Robin. Instead, she finds that the thing she would like best of all to be doing at this moment, next to going to church, would be to be lying on her father's couch in the office, all by herself, reading.
The dinner is a savoury triumph for Peggy and her mother. The gravy and the mashed potato are entirely of Peggy's workmanship, and Peggy has had a hand in most of the other dishes, too, as the mother proudly tells. How that merry party can eat! Peggy is waitress, and it is long before the passing is over, and she can sit down in her own place. She is just as fond of the unusual Christmas good things as are the rest, but somehow, before she is well started at her turkey, it is time for changing plates for dessert, and before she has tasted her nuts and raisins the babies have succumbed to sleepiness, and it is Peggy who must carry them upstairs for their nap—just in the middle of one of Hazen's funniest stories, too.
And all the time the little sister is so ready, so quickly serviceable, that somehow nobody notices—nobody but the doctor. It is he who finds Peggy, half as hour later, all alone in the kitchen. The mother and the older daughters are gathered about the sitting-room hearth, engaged in the dear, delicious talk about the little things that are always left out of letters.