"Did you think of a Christmas-tree?" asked Hugh eagerly.

Agnes shook her head. "It was of no use thinking of it; we hadn't money enough. No, we thought of games; only the boys are apt to get rough, and without mother and father it seemed a great undertaking."

"So it is," said Alice; "for don't you remember what a dreadful noise they made one year when we had them?"

"Yes," answered John; "so, as I was pa.s.sing along the Strand the day after father went to America, I noticed 'magic-lanterns for school treats,' posted up very large in a window, and it gave me the idea of using mine for our little treat, and hiring a few more slides to make it last longer."

"Yes, we haven't so very many slides," said Minnie, considering.

"Pretty well," answered John; "but at anyrate two dozen more will be an advantage."

"And after the magic-lantern is over?" asked Alice.

"Agnes is going to talk to them, or tell them a story, and after that they'll have an orange."

"Oh!" said Minnie, "I shall like that."

"Which," asked Hugh, "the 'talk,' or the 'story,' or the 'orange'?"

Minnie blushed, but after the late little breeze determined not to be vexed, and answered, "You know perfectly well what I meant, Hugh; so it's no good trying to make out anything else."

"Do you want me to do anything to-day. Agnes?" asked Alice.

"Of course I do," exclaimed Agnes; "I have a perfect list of things to be done. Cakes to be made by Alice; room to be got ready by Hugh; chairs brought from everywhere, seats devised, flowers arranged--there, I can't tell you all till we are in it."

"And is there anything for me to do?" asked Minnie, getting up and coming round to lean against her sister's shoulder.

"Yes, I want you to be willing to run messages all day long, and never to mind how often Alice sends you upstairs, or Hugh sends you downstairs, but to have feet of love for to-day."

"All right," said Minnie.

"And then for pleasant things, between whiles, you shall go to buy the oranges, and some buns, and some gingerbread nuts, and so on, and we'll have I hope as happy a day as any since they went away."

As Agnes turned at the door to give a parting direction, Hugh put his arm round her and said humbly:

"I'm awfully sorry I was so stupid, Agnes--so wrong--but I'm for ever forgetting."

And Agnes said, "I'm sorry too, Hugh, that we made a secret of it, for I see now it would have been nicer for you to have known; but I didn't mean to be unkind."

After that they worked on happily together all the morning, though Hugh felt a twinge whenever any one remarked, as Minnie and Alice were apt to do all day, "How funny it seems not to have known."

"It's the last secret I'll have, John, that I can help," said Agnes to him when they were left alone for a few minutes, and were busy pinning up the sheet.

"Yes," answered John, reaching down from the top of the steps, where he was astride, and taking the corner from her outstretched arm, "Yes, Agnes. I don't believe in secrets."

"Nor I," answered Agnes, "I have seen it before, and it will this time be a lesson to me."

"But we didn't quarrel over it, exactly."

"Oh, no; but we might have if you had not remembered in time. I do not mean that I defend Hugh for being so cross over it, but I see once more that n.o.body likes to have things kept and then given all of a heap."

"You are very lucid."

"Well," she answered, laughing and blushing. "I remember on my seventeenth birthday you all thought it would be nice to give me my presents at tea, and so they were kept all day, and it was a wretched birthday."

John was descending the ladder. "I never knew that," he said.

"Oh, it is not worth remembering," said Agnes; "I only thought of it as an ill.u.s.tration. It was not that I cared so much about the presents, you know, John, it was because everything seemed incomplete. After all I had a much better present than I ever dreamed of, for father gave me my dear little watch."

"I see what you mean," said John. "Now, Agnes, for the other end; that hangs very straight, doesn't it?"

"Nicely. This long curtain-pole is a fine idea for magic-lantern exhibitions."

"Yes, I am glad you thought of it. Agnes, how do you like being left to ourselves?"

"Not at all," answered Agnes decidedly.

"Are we better or worse than you expected?"

"I am worse--you are better," she answered, laughing a little; but it was as near a sob as a laugh.

"How?" asked John earnestly.

"Well, I mean that in one way, and not in another. I think I expected we should all be more perfect than we are."

"You did not expect me to break my promise, for instance?" asked John gravely.

"I hardly think you did. Oh no, John, you have been better in every way than I could have hoped, and _I_ have been worse!"

"I don't see it," he answered fondly.

"But I do; I trusted in myself too much."

"We all do. Agnes, I'm inclined to think this being left to ourselves will turn out for our good."

"I am sure I hope so."

"Don't be desponding. Look at Hugh! Who ever heard him acknowledge himself in the wrong before? and yet just now, you know what he said to you? He would not have done that a month ago."

Agnes looked up. "Do you think so?" she said. "Oh, John, what a comforter you are."

"Then cheer up. Are you not doing what He would have you to do?"

"I try to."

"Then thank Him," said her brother cheerfully, "and take courage."

All was in readiness by the hour fixed for the arrival of their little guests, and very punctually to it, in fact a quarter of an hour before five o'clock. Minnie, who was always the one to watch at the window, announced that two of them were loitering about outside.