BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.
I.
Marjorie was sitting curled up in a big easy-chair before the fire. The room was her own school-room, and the fire-light danced and played on all sorts of beautiful, luxurious objects—everything for making the young mistress of the big house comfortable. But Marjorie had come to believe herself the most wretched of all young people, and while the fire-light seemed to redden and glow with happy beams on everything else, it darkened the look on Marjorie's little face. Now and then she tossed her little curls; sometimes she puckered her lips, and frowned and nodded; evidently she was thinking very hard and very unpleasantly. If her thoughts had been expressed, they would have shown that she thought Christmas week had been "just perfectly horrid—not one nice thing about it. Uncle John away—gone to see those miserable Williamsons, who had taken this time of all others to be ill. And Miss Marbery talk about her having so many blessings! A lot of horrid old presents, no tree, and Miss Marbery"—the governess—"looking so tired all the time! And after all she had said to Uncle John, he hadn't got her a new French doll, and her old one looked like a perfect fright."
Poor silly little Marjorie! After she had gone on thinking half an hour or so, she gradually concluded she was a victim of the cruelest circumstances, and that in spite of all the love and beauty and tender thought in the life around her, she just had nothing at all done for her comfort, happiness, or well-being.
Marjorie glanced about the room as the twilight gathered. Snow was falling outside the luxuriously curtained windows, so that the cheer within ought to have been peculiarly noticeable; but to Marjorie nothing looked very pleasant anywhere just then. Her toys were scattered about, the despised doll was nowhere to be seen, the rocking-horse of last year was in the centre of the room. The big map Uncle John had had made to interest her in geography loomed up on one side of the wall in a way Marjorie didn't think at all agreeable. This map could be taken all to pieces; even the rivers were made so that they could be taken out, and made to bend little joints here and there in and out of the countries. Marjorie had thought it the greatest fun imaginable to play with this map when it first came home, but she had tired of this as soon as of everything else. Somehow, as she sat in the fire-light, it fascinated her to try and read the various names of the countries. She was looking very steadily toward what she certainly thought was China, when suddenly the letters seemed to change curiously. "Is that China?" Marjorie said, half aloud. China on Marjorie's map was a yellow country, and so, certainly, was the piece she was looking at; but the name gradually seemed to unfold itself before her wondering eyes. "Why," said Marjorie, really speaking out loud this time—"why, it's Christmas-land! How funny I should always have thought it was China!"
"Didn't you know that?" said a queer voice near by. It was more a sort of squeak than a voice; but Marjorie turned her head, and saw her rocking-horse rocking violently.
"Did you speak?" she asked, a little startled.
"I rocked a few words," answered the horse, without altering the very decided expression of his eyes. "I asked you if you had never known that before."
"Known what?" said Marjorie.
"Look and see," rocked the horse, and so Marjorie turned her eyes back to the map. Another change had occurred—indeed, not one, but many. The windows seemed to have melted away into the snow-storm outside, and the map, which usually hung between them, had slowly changed, every country and every river fading away, until Christmas-land only seemed to remain. But even that was changing too, for now it no longer looked like a picture on the map, but a real country. Marjorie started forward toward it. Fir-trees were loaded with icicles; a snowy road seemed to stretch away ahead of her out of the place where the windows and the map had been; and the horse? He too had undergone a change, even while Marjorie's eyes were looking at the windows. Instead of his usual old harness, he had a comfortable saddle and substantial bridle. Then his hair had grown thicker, and he had a splendid blanket, and a collar of bells.