Hortense disengaged herself from her parents, and ran up to her cousin, putting her arms around him.
"I wasn't good. I wouldn't go up stairs when he told me, and I climbed up on the window-sill to lean out and see Santa Claus coming, and I slipped, and the window came down on my fingers, and I rolled around on the shed and most pulled him off."
"And you needn't try to hide your hand," said uncle Thomas, where they were visiting, "because we all see that it is bleeding."
At that there was a second rush for the hero of the hour, and the excited relatives each had to examine for himself and herself George Edward's thumb torn by the catch of the blind as he pulled himself up.
To save him from further sympathy, his mother seconded his proposition to have the Christmas stockings then and there.
"I know it is only quarter-past two," she said laughingly, "but these young folks won't sleep a wink if we send them to bed, nor I fancy will we elders do much better. Let us all go up to our rooms, give ourselves just ten minutes to array ourselves in something more festive and befitting the occasion than"—
"These bath wrappers, mackintoshes, and gossamer waterproofs," finished somebody in the group for her.
"O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what a Christmas frolic," cried two of the other mammas, not waiting for her to finish.
"O, aunt Fannie, aunt Fannie, what fun!" cried the young people.
George Edward swelled with pride at his mother's popularity. "Come on," he cried, "see who gets down first."