Dolly and Stephen came home to the Thanksgiving dinner. If Hanny had not been so much engrossed she might have considered herself left out of some things, only her father never left her out. And Ben brought home such tempting books that she did wish she could sit up like the others and not have to go to bed at nine.

The Epiphany fair came first, the week before Christmas. The Sunday-school room was all dressed with greens, and tables arranged over the tops of the seats with long boards, covered with white cloths. And oh, the lovely articles! Everything it seemed that fingers could make, useful or ornamental, from handsomely dressed dolls to pincushions, from white ap.r.o.ns with lace and ribbon bows on the dainty pockets down to unromantic holders. Everybody laughed and chatted and were as gay as gay could be.

In the back room that was rented out for a day school--indeed, the little girl had come quite near being sent here--there were tables for refreshments. The coffee and tea had a delightful fragrance, and the different dishes looked wonderfully tempting.

It was Hanny's first fair, but people didn't expect to take children out everywhere then, or indeed to go themselves. There was more home life, real family life. Her father was her escort, and her mother had said: "Now don't make the child sick by feeding her all kinds of trash, or she can't go out again this winter." So you see they had to be careful. But they had some delightful cake and cream, and he bought her a pound of candy tied up in a pretty box, and the loveliest little work-basket with a row of blue silk pockets around the inside.

Katy Rhodes was waiting at a table with her mother, but she found an opportunity to whisper to Hanny "that her lace had sold the very first thing, and there had been such a call for it she just wished they had had a hundred yards."

That pleased the child very much.

"It was like a store," said Hanny to her mother; "only everybody seemed to know everybody, and there were all kinds of things. So many people came for their suppers they must have made lots of money. And I'm as tired as I can be, only it _was_ beautiful."

Martha's church was to have their Christmas Sunday-school anniversary, and Charles Reed was to sing a solo with a chorus of four voices. The Deans and half the people in the street went. Margaret and Dr. Hoffman, and this time John and Ben took the little girl. Mother had been up at Steve's all day.

There was a large platform at the end of the church, and crowds of pretty children dressed in white, ranged in tiers one above another.

After a prayer and singing by the congregation the real exercises began.

The body of children sang some beautiful hymns, then there were several spirited dialogues, and separate pieces, very well rendered indeed. When it came "bonnie Prince Charlie's" turn, he seemed to hesitate a moment.

Hanny thought she would be frightened to death before all the people. I think Charles would have been a year ago.

The piano began the soft accompaniment. After the first few notes the sweet young voice swelled out like the warble of a bird. People were silent with surprise and admiration. The fair, boyish face and slim figure looked smaller there on the platform. The face had a youthful sweetness that nowadays would be p.r.o.nounced artistic.

The chorus came in beautifully. There were three verses in the solo, and really, I do not know as the audience were to blame for applauding. The boy had to come out and sing again, this time a pretty Christmas carol that they had practised at singing-school.

When the exercises were finished the children were all taken down-stairs and they looked very pretty flitting about. There was another surprise, one that greatly interested the little girl. In one prettily arranged booth were two curious small beings who had a history. They had already been in Sunday-school on two occasions. A missionary to China, seeing these little girls about to be sold, had rescued them by buying them himself. He had brought them back on his return, and now kindly disposed people were making up a sum to provide them with a home and educate them.

Hanny pressed forward holding John's hand tightly. They were so strange-looking. The larger and older one was not at all pretty, but the younger one had a sweet sort of shyness and was not so stolid. Their yellow-brown skins, oblique dark eyes, black brows, and black hair done up in a remarkable fashion with some long pins, and their Chinese attire seemed very curious. The gentleman with them said there were hundreds of little girls sold in China, and that women bought them for future wives for their sons, and treated them like bond slaves. These children's feet had not been cramped, this was done mainly to the higher orders. He had some Chinese shoes worn by grown women, and they were such short, queer things, like some of the pincushions made for the Fair.

We didn't suppose then the Chinese would come and live with us and have a Chinatown in the heart of the city; do our laundry work and take possession of our kitchens; that the blue shirts and queer pointed shoes would be a common sight in our streets. So the Chinese children were a curiosity. Indeed, several years elapsed before Hanny saw another inhabitant of the Flowery Kingdom.

"Don't you want to put something in the box?" John held out a quarter to the little girl.

Her eyes sparkled with pleasure. Then she shook hands with the small Chinese maidens, and she felt almost as if she had been to a foreign country.

If Mrs. Reed had been present she would have marched Charles home in short order. She did not believe in praising children, or anybody else for that matter. Everybody, in her opinion, needed a strict hand. She hardly approved of the singing-school, and if she had really understood that Charles would stand out alone facing the audience, and then be applauded for what he had done, and go into the fair and be praised and "treated," she would have been horrified and put him on the strictest sort of discipline for the next month.

Charles had endeavored to persuade his mother to go, but she wanted to get the turkey ready for the Christmas dinner, and had no time for such trifling things. No woman had who did her duty by her house and her family. The harder and stonier and more rigid the discipline was, the more virtue it contained, she thought. There was no especial end in view with her; it was the way all along that one had to be careful about and make as rough as possible.

Mr. Reed was secretly proud of his boy. He had a misgiving that all this praise and attention was not a good thing, but the boy looked so happy, and it was Christmas Eve, with the general feeling of joy in the air. He was curiously moved himself. Perhaps happiness wasn't such a weak and sinful thing after all. It did not seem to ruin the Underhill family.

But he said to Charles as they were nearing home: "I wouldn't make much fuss about the evening. Your mother thinks such things rather foolish."

They all returned in a crowd, laughing and talking and saying merry good-nights. Martha had the key of the bas.e.m.e.nt and they trooped in.

Indeed, Martha was so much one of the family that Dr. Hoffman paid her a deal of respect.

Father was up-stairs in the sitting-room reading his paper. He glanced up and nodded.

"Oh!" cried Hanny, "where's mother? The house looks so dark and dull and not a bit Christma.s.sy. It was all so splendid, and oh, Father! Charles sung like an angel, didn't he, Margaret? They made him sing over again, and he looked really beautiful. And there were two Chinese girls at the fair, such queer little things," she flushed, for the word recalled Lily Ludlow. "Their hands were as soft as silk, and when they talked--well, you can't imagine it! It sounded like knocking little blocks all around and making the corners click. But where _is_ mother?"

"Mother is going to stay up to Steve's all night. They wanted her to help them."

"Oh, dear! It won't be any Christmas without her," cried the little girl ruefully.

"Oh, she'll be home in the morning, likely."

"Hanny, it is after eleven, and you must go to bed," said Margaret.

"I'd just like to stay up all night, once. And can't I hang up my stocking?"

"I'll see to that. Come, dear. And boys, go to bed."

CHAPTER XIX

WHEN CHRISTMAS BELLS WERE RINGING

The boys tried to be merry with a big M to it, on Christmas morning. But something was lacking. The stockings hung in a row, and there were piles of gifts below them. Books and books and books! They were all too old for playthings now. Hanny had two white ap.r.o.ns ruffled all round, and a pretty pair of winter boots. They were beginning to make them higher in the ankle and more dainty, and st.i.tching them in colors. These were done with two rows of white. She had a set of the Lucy books that all little girls were delighted with. Oh, I do wonder what they would have said to Miss Alcott and Susan Coolidge and Pansy! But they were very happy in what they had. Jim was delighted with two new volumes of Cooper. Ben had a splendid pair of high boots, and three new shirts Margaret and the little girl had made for him.

But, oh, dear! what was it all without mother! They missed her bright, cheery voice, her smile and her ample person that had a warm buoyant atmosphere. They would have been glad to hear her scold a little about the litter of gifts around, and their lagging so when breakfast was ready.

To make the little girl laugh her father told her that once a man was driving along a country road when he saw seven children sitting on the doorstep crying, and seven more on the fence. Startled at so much grief he paused to inquire what had happened, and with one voice they answered:

"Our mother's gone away and left us all alone!"

"There's only seven of us with Martha, and I am not crying," said the little girl spiritedly.

Joe dropped in just as they were seated at the table, and whispered something to his father and Margaret. He seemed very merry, and Mr.

Underhill gave a satisfied nod. He brought Margaret a beautiful cameo brooch, which was considered a fine thing then, and put a pretty garnet ring on Hanny's finger.

Hanny guessed what the word had been. Mother was going to bring Steve and Dolly down to dinner. Dolly had changed her mind, for she had said she could not come. That was what they were smiling about.

At ten Stephen brought mother down in the sleigh, and they were more mysterious than ever.

Peggy and the little girl must bundle up and go back with him, for he had such a wonderful Christmas present to show them.

"But why didn't you bring Dolly and stay to dinner? And oh, Mother!

Christmas morning wasn't splendid at all without you!" said the little girl, clinging to her.

Mrs. Underhill stooped and kissed her and said in a full, tremulous sort of voice:

"Run and get your hood, dear, and don't keep Stephen waiting."

The horses tossed their heads and whinnied as if they too, said, "Don't keep us waiting." The sun was shining and all the air seemed infused with joy, though it was a sharp winter day. The weather knew its business fifty years ago and didn't sandwich whiffs of spring between snow-banks. And the children were blowing on tin and wooden horns, and wishing everybody Merry Christmas as they ran around with the reddest of cheeks.

Steve took Hanny on his lap. What did make him so laughing and mysterious? He insisted that Hanny should guess, and then kept saying, "Oh, you're cold, cold, cold as an icehouse! You should have put on your guessing cap," and the little girl felt quite teased.