"Why do they all pretend to think it's so fine for me?" she wondered. "To cheer me up, I guess," she thought grimly.
To-night they were all sharing the aloofness from the time, an aloofness which she herself had known for years. All save Jenny. To Jenny's house, in defiance of that dog-eared paper in the post office, Christmas had come. Not a Christmas of "present trading," not a Christmas of things at all; but Christmas. Unto them a child was born.
"Jenny's the only one in this town that's got a real Christmas," thought Mary, on her way to meet her own little guest.
The Simeon Buck North American Dry Goods Exchange was dark, too, and from its cave of window the gray Saint Nicholas looked out, bearing his flag—and he to-night an idle, mummy thing of no significance. The Abel Ames General Merchandise Emporium was closed, but involuntarily Mary stopped before it. In its great plate-glass window a single candle burned. She stood for a moment looking.
"Why, that's what they do, some places, to let the Christ-child in," Mary thought. "I wonder if Abel knows. How funny—for a store!"
Some one whom she did not know passed her and looked too.
"Kind o' nice," said the other.
"Real nice," Mary returned, and went on with a little glow.
Abel's candle, and the arc light shining like cold blue crystal before the dark Town Hall, and the post-office light where the dog-eared list hung and the telegraph key clicked out its pretence at hand touching with all the world, these were the only lights the street showed—save Capella, that went beside her and, as she looked, seemed almost to stand above the town.
At Mis' Moran's house on the other side of the square, the children were waiting for her—Bennet and Gussie and Tab and Pep and little Emily. They ran before Mary in the road, all save little Emily, who walked clasping Mary's hand.