It was so unusual for Ronald to speak seriously that Sheila was quite surprised, yet somehow it seemed to draw them closer together. That was how Oscar sometimes talked, and upon this Christmas morning her thoughts were very much with Oscar. It was the first Christmas they had ever spent apart, and Sheila was a little bit homesick in consequence.
“I should hate not to go to church on Christmas morning,” she said. “It seems to bring us near to everybody all round the world. It is so hard to realise that it is Christmas here. A few days ago when it rained so, and the snow came on the mountains, one could fancy, perhaps, that it might be winter somewhere; but with this glorious sunshine! It seems almost ridiculous!”
“Do you like Christmas out here, Miss Sheila?” asked Ronald, who often called her that, and sometimes “Miss Baby,” “or would you rather be at home?”
Sudden tears came quite unexpectedly into Sheila’s eyes. She looked down that Ronald might not see them.
“I don’t think I have a home exactly—now,” she said.
He looked at her quickly, a flash in his eyes.
“But surely your home is with your uncle and aunt?”
“Yes,” answered Sheila a little unsteadily, “in a way it is, but sometimes it doesn’t seem quite a real home.”
A tear plashed down, but Sheila turned her head away, and then looked back with a brave smile.
“I oughtn’t to say that, perhaps. It sounds ungrateful, but, of course, it can’t be the same as one’s own house, and last Christmas we were so happy, and I never thought of things changing like this!”