CHAPTER XIX.
It was four years later, and it was again the day before Christmas.
Cynthia sat in her own room by the bed, which was covered with presents in various stages of completion; some tied up and marked, ready to be sent, others only half finished, and one or two but just begun. Bob, as usual, lay at her feet.
"There!" cried she, as with a loud snap her needle broke for the third time; "there it goes again. I believe I'll give up this wretched frame and all the other things that are not finished, and go to Boston this morning. I'll just buy everything I see, regardless of price."
"You would never get near the counters, the shops are so packed," observed Edith, who was hovering over a table full of lovely articles on the other side of the large room. "Just send what you have, Cynthia, and let the rest go. You can't possibly finish them in time. You give so many Christmas presents."
"Oh, it's all very well for you, with all those wedding-presents and the Christmas things you'll have besides, to think other people won't want them! You don't take half as much interest in Christmas as usual this year, Edith, just because you are going to be married so soon. Now I should never change about Christmas if I were to be married forty times—which I hope I sha'n't be. In fact, I've about made up my mind never to marry at all."
"Nonsense! I think I used to say that myself when I was as young as you are."
"And you're just two years older, so according to that you were saying so this time two years ago, which was not by any means the case, for you were already engaged to Dennis then! In fact, I don't believe you ever said it. Oh, another needle! I'm too excited to work, anyhow. What with weddings and Christmas and the boys coming home, I am utterly incapable of further exertion."
She tossed the unfinished photograph-frame across the bed and leaned back in her chair. Then she began to gather up her work materials. Finally she moved restlessly to the window.
"It is beginning to snow. I hope the boys won't be blocked up on the way. Wouldn't it be dreadful?"