She shrieked again. "This _miserable_ place! These--_brats_!"

"Maria Drinkwater, will you calm yourself enough to tell us what has happened?" Mrs. Westley shook ever so slightly the flanneletted shoulders.

"_Happened_----" snapped Aunt Maria. "Is it not _enough_ to have my digestion spoiled by dogs and mice and boys but--oh, my poor heart, to find a _mouse_ under my pillow----"

If the children had not been struck quite dumb by Aunt Maria's grotesque face, with its wrinkles, they must surely have shouted aloud! The third little mouse had sought refuge in Aunt Maria's bed!

Peregrine-Sarah and Mrs. Westley spent most of the night ministering vainly to Aunt Maria's nerves. The next day, unforgiving, she departed, bag and baggage.

Poor Isobel, thus burst the pretty bubble of her dreams! "I don't care, they've spoiled my whole life," she wailed, tears reddening her eyes.

"_Who_ spoiled it--who did anything?" laughed Graham.

"What's this all about?" asked Uncle Johnny coming in at that moment.

Gyp told him what had happened. She talked too fast to permit of any interruption; her story was Gyp-like.

"_You_ say, Uncle Johnny, _did_ we break our promise just 'cause a poor little mouse hid under her pillow?"

"If it hadn't been for that miserable dog----" Isobel saw an opportunity for sweet revenge. "Mother, why don't you send it away? You made Graham give back that Airedale puppy Mr. Saunders sent him; I don't think it's fair to keep this horrid old mongrel!"

Jerry's face darkened. Graham came hotly to Pepper's rescue.

"He's _not_ a mongrel--he's better'n _any_ old Airedale! He's got more sense in his _tail_ than Aunt Maria's got in her whole body! If he goes I'll--I'll--go, too!"

"Children," protested Mrs. Westley, giving way to the laughter that had been consuming her from the first moment of Aunt Maria's arrival. "Let's all feel grateful to Pepper. She's a poor, silly, selfish, vain old woman, and if she ever comes here again I'm afraid that _I_ won't promise to be good myself! Isobel Westley, dry your eyes--do you think I'd let any girl of mine go to France with her? She can take her eight other goddaughters, if they want to stand her quarreling with every single person in authority--I won't let her have _my_ girl. Why," she turned to John Westley and her face was very earnest, "she's such a _waste_--of human energy, of brains--of just breath! How terrible to grow old and be like--that."

Gyp was furtively feeling of her firm cheeks. "I'd rather be ugly, mother, than wear those funny things. _Look_, mummy," she ran to her mother's chair and touched her cheek. "_You've_ got a wrinkle! But--I love it." With passionate tenderness she kissed the spot.

"I'll take you to France myself some day," laughed Uncle Johnny, patting Isobel's hand.

"And can we go to see the 'Land o' Dreams'?" asked Graham, anxiously.

"Indeed we will--as a celebration," assented his mother.

CHAPTER XII

THE PARTY

The Christmas holidays brought a welcome respite from the steady grind of school work. And there was every indication, in the Westley home, that they were going to be very merry! Mrs. Westley had one fixed rule for her youngsters: "Work while you work and play while you play." So she and Uncle Johnny, behind carefully closed doors, planned all sorts of jolly surprises for the holiday week.

But Jerry had a little secret, too, all of her own. She had written to her mother begging to be allowed to go home "just for Christmas." She had had to write two letters; the first, with its burst of longing, had sounded so ungrateful that she had torn it up and had written another.

Then she waited eagerly, hopefully, for the answer.

It came a few days before Christmas, and with it a huge pasteboard box.

Something told Jerry, before she opened the envelope, what her mother had written. Her lips quivered.

"...It will be hard for us both, dear child, not to be together on Christmas, but it seems unwise for you to go to the trouble and expense of coming home for such a short stay. We are snowed in and you would not have the relaxation that you need after your long weeks of study. Then, darling, it would be all the harder to let you go again. I want you to have the jolliest sort of a holiday and I shall be happy thinking each day what my little girl is doing. I have had such nice letters from Mrs.

Westley and Mr. John telling all about you--they have been a great comfort to me. We are sending the box with a breath of Kettle in it. The bitter-sweet we have been saving for you since last fall...."

When Jerry opened the box the room filled with the fragrant odor of pine. In an ecstasy she leaned her face close to the branches and sniffed delightedly; she wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh--it was as though she suddenly had a bit of home right there with her. Her disappointment was forgotten. She lifted out the pine and bitter-sweet to put it in every corner of her room, then another thought seized her.

Except for Gyp, practicing in a half-hearted way downstairs, the house was empty. On tiptoe she stole to the different rooms, leaving in each a bit of her pine and a gay cluster of the bitter-sweet.

The postman's ring brought Gyp's practice, with one awful discord, to an abrupt finish. In a moment she came bounding up the stairs, two little white envelopes in her hand.

"Jerry--we're invited to a real party--Pat Everett's." She tossed one of the small squares into Jerry's lap. "Hope to die invitations, just like Isobel gets!"

Jerry stared at the bit of pasteboard. Gyp's delight was principally because it was the first "real" evening party to which she had been invited; it was a milestone in her life--it meant that she was very grown-up.

"Jerauld Travis--you don't act a _bit_ excited! It will be heaps of fun for Pat's father and mother are the jolliest people--and there'll be dancing and boys--and spliffy eats."

"I never went to a party--like _that_." Jerry, with something like awe, lifted the card.

"Oh, a party's a party, anywhere," declared Gyp loftily, speaking from the wisdom of her newly-acquired dignity.

"And--I haven't anything to wear," added Jerry, putting the card down on her desk with the tiniest sigh.

Gyp's face clouded; that was too true to be disputed. Her own clothes would not fit Jerry but Isobel's----

"We'll ask Isobel to let you----"

"No--_no_!" cried Jerry vehemently. Her face flushed. "Don't you _dare_!"

Gyp looked aggrieved. "I don't see why not, but if you feel like that--only, it'll spoil the whole party. Oh----" she suddenly sniffed.

"_What's_ that woodsy smell? Where did you get it?"

And the pine and the berries made Gyp and Jerry forget, for the moment, the Everett party.

The holiday frolics began with the appropriate ceremony of consigning all the school books to the depths of a great, carved chest in the library, turning the curious old key in the lock and handing it over to Mrs. Westley. Jerry had demurred, but she recognized, behind all the fun, a real firmness. "Every book, my dear! Not one of you children must peep inside of the cover of even a--story, until I give back the key."

Mrs. Westley pinched Jerry's cheek. "I want to see red rosies again, my dear girl."

Christmas eve brought a glad surprise to the family in the unexpected arrival of Robert Westley. Jerry had wondered a little about Gyp's father; it was very nice to find him so much like Uncle Johnny that one liked him at the very first moment. He had, it seemed, resorted to all sorts of expedients to get from Valparaiso to his own fireside in time for Christmas, but everyone's delight had made it very worth while.

"That's one thing that makes up for father being away so much,"

explained Gyp. "He 'most always just walks in and surprises us and brings the jolliest things from queer places."

On Christmas morning Jerry opened sleepy eyes to find soft flurries of snow beating against her windows, a piney odor in her nostrils and Gyp in a red dressing-gown by the side of her bed.

"Merry Christmas!" In her arms Gyp carried some of the contents of her own Christmas stocking. "Wake up and see what Santa has brought you!"

On the bedpost hung a bulging stocking; queer-shaped packages, tied with red ribbon, were piled close to it, and across the foot of Jerry's bed lay a huge box.

"Open this first. What _is_ it? I don't know." Gyp was as excited as though the box was for her. Jerry untied the cord and lifted the cover.

Within, beneath the folds of tissue paper, lay two pretty dresses, a blue serge school dress and a fluffy, shimmery party frock; beneath them a gay sweater and tam o'shanter. Upon a card, enclosed, had been written, plainly in Uncle Johnny's handwriting: "From Santa Claus."