Why, sometimes they are sold and bring perfectly enormous prices."

"I know that," said Katharine; "but they make ever so much fun of the people that ask for them."

"I don't care if they do," said Jessie; "I'm going to have one, pretty soon, that will make you all envy me."

"Whose?" asked Alan.

"That's telling," responded Jessie mysteriously.

"How are you going to get it?" inquired Polly.

"I've asked for it," replied Jessie, with a knowing smile.

"Is it somebody I know?" asked her sister.

"No, not exactly; but it's somebody that everyone in this whole world knows about."

"Jessie Shepard, what crazy thing have you been doing?" demanded Katharine.

"I shan't tell." And Jessie shut her lips defiantly.

"Oh, come on, Jessie, tell us," urged Alan, while Katharine added,--

"If you don't tell me, Jessie, I shall speak to auntie. I know you have done something you are ashamed of."

Jessie laughed good-naturedly.

"Don't be silly and make such a fuss over nothing, Kit. I only wanted to tease you a little; I'd just as soon tell as not. I'll give you each a guess, and then, if you don't get it, I'll tell you. That's fair, isn't it? Who'll you guess, Kit?"

"Oliver Wendell Holmes," said Katharine promptly.

Jessie smiled disdainfully.

"Wrong. What should I want of him?"

"I should think anybody would want him," returned Katharine. "He's the greatest person I could think of; and besides, you've just been studying about him."

"Well, he isn't the one," said Jessie. "Go on, Alan."

"The President of these United States," suggested Alan pompously.

"Never!" responded Jessie fervently. "I'm a Democrat, you know, so I don't want him. But you're in the right track. Polly, who is it?"

"General Grant," said Polly.

"He died ever so long ago, Polly," corrected Alan.

"Oh, yes, so he did. Well, let's see. The Mayor of Omaha?"

"No! No! No!" said Jessie. "I didn't say it was a man, any way.

It's a woman; she's an English-man and she's a queen."

"Jessie!" And Katharine dropped into a chair, too much horrified to say more.

"You don't mean to say," queried Polly, "that you've been and gone and asked Queen Victoria to send you her autograph?"

Jessie nodded triumphantly.

"Well, she won't," returned Polly, with deliberate emphasis, while Alan laughed, and laughed again at the absurd idea.

Then Jessie showed her trump card.

"Yes, she will," she said, with a firmness born of conviction; "she will too, for I put in a two-cent stamp for her to answer with. There!"

CHAPTER XI

JEAN'S CHRISTMAS EVE.

Christmas mystery was in the air. For weeks the girls had been busy over all sorts of gay trifles which were whisked out of sight, now and then, to avoid some particular pair of curious eyes that were not intended to see them until the proper moment came.

"What's the use of making such a time about it?" inquired Alan, in some disgust one day.

He had rushed breathlessly into the room to announce the first skating of the season, and was greeted with four protesting voices, as the girls tried to cover up the stripes of the afghan they were making for his own especial use.

"Making such a time about it, you heathen!" retorted Polly, diving after a ball of golden-yellow wool; "you know perfectly well that all the fun of Christmas is in surprising people. I'd rather have a paper of pins, and have the fun of being astonished over it, than get the most elegant present in creation and know all about it beforehand."

"That's all very fine, Poll; but I haven't been able to come near you girls for a month, without your all howling at me," objected Alan. "Now, of course I know you aren't doing all this for me, but you won't let me see anything. I'll start up some secrets, too; see if I don't!"

"Poor boy, does he want to see?" said Katharine protectingly.

"Well, I'll show you one thing, Alan, if you'll promise not to tease any more."

"Depends on what 'tis," returned Alan grudgingly. "One is better than nothing, so go ahead."

Katharine gathered up her work under the light shawl which lay across her shoulders, and went away out of the room. Presently she came back again, with a pile of something soft and red in her arms.

"There now!" she said, shaking out the folds with conscious pride.

"This is our grandest secret of all. It's a dressing-gown for Bridget, and we girls have cut and made it ourselves, every st.i.tch. It's well made, too; you can look, if you know enough to judge."

"We!" echoed Polly. "Katharine has done 'most all of the work."

Alan eyed it critically.

"I say, that's something worth having," he remarked. "I wish I was Miss O'Finnigan; I know that color would be becoming to me, and it's so soft and warm." And before the girls could guess his intention, he had slipped on the long, loose garment, and was parading up and down the room in it, with all the airs of a young peac.o.c.k.

"Tell me some more," he implored them; "tell me what you were doing when I came in."

"Never!" said Jessie sternly. "You know more now than you deserve.

You'll have to wait for the rest."