"Won't your father let you?" he asked.

"I won't let myself," replied the little girl.

"Oh!" said Billy, his gray eyes deepening. "Well, let me have the evergreens and you go back for some more. It'll save me getting Ma hers."

With one thrust of her foot Lydia shoved the fragrant pile of boughs into the snow. She tied the brace of duck to the sled and started back toward the wood, then paused and looked back at Billy.

"Thank you a hundred times," she called.

"It was a business deal. No thanks needed," he replied.

Lydia nodded and trudged off. The boy stood for a moment looking at the little figure, then he started after her.

"Lydia, I'll get that load of pines for you."

She tossed a vivid smile over her shoulder. "You will not. It's a business deal."

And Billy turned back reluctantly toward the barn.

In an hour Lydia was panting up the steps into the kitchen. Lizzie's joy was even more extreme than Lydia's. She thawed the ducks out and dressed them, after dinner, with the two children standing so close as at times seriously to impede progress.

"I'm lucky," said Lydia. "There isn't anybody luckier than I am or has better things happen to 'em than I do. I'd rather be me than a water baby."

"Baby not a water baby. Baby a duck," commented Patience, her hands full of bright feathers.

"Baby is a duck," laughed Lydia. "Won't Daddy be glad!"

Amos was glad. Plodding sadly home, he was greeted by three glowing faces in the open door as soon as his foot sounded on the porch. The base burner in the living-room was clear and glowing. The dining-room was fragrant with pine. He was not allowed to take off his overcoat, but was towed to the kitchen where the two birds, trussed and stuffed for the baking, were set forth on the table.

"I got 'em!" shouted Lydia. "I got 'em off Billy Norton for a load of pine. Christmas present for you, Daddy, from yours truly, Lydia!" She seized the baby's hands and the two did a dance round Amos, shouting, "Christmas present! Christmas present!" at the top of their lungs.

"Well! Well!" exclaimed Amos. "Isn't that fine! If Levine comes out to-morrow we can ask him to dinner, after all. Can't we, Lizzie?"

"You bet we can!" said Lizzie. "And look at this. I was going to keep it for a surprise. I made it by your wife's recipe."

She held an open Mason jar under Amos' nose.

"Mince meat!" he exclaimed. "Why, Lizzie, where'd you get the makings?"

"Oh, a bit here and a bit there for the last two months. Ain't it grand?" offering a smell to each of the children, who sniffed ecstatically.

When the baby was safely asleep, Lydia appeared with two stockings which she hung on chair backs by the stove in the living-room.

"I'm putting them up to hold the candy," she explained to her father, suggestively.

He rose obediently and produced half a dozen oranges and a bag of candy.

"Oh, that's gorgeous," cried Lydia, whose spirits to-night were not to be quenched. She brought in the doll house.

"See, Daddy," she said, with the pride of the master builder. "I colored it with walnut juice. And I found the wall paper in the attic."

Amos got down on his knees and examined the tiny rooms and the cigar box furniture. He chuckled delightedly. "I swan," he said, "if Patience doesn't want it you can give it to me!"

"I'm going to let Lizzie put the candy in the stockings," mused Lydia, "then I'll have that to look forward to. I'm going to bed right now, so morning will come sooner."

Alone with the stockings, into which Lizzie put the candy and oranges, Amos sat long staring at the base burner. Without, the moon sailed high. Wood snapping in the intense cold was the only sound on the wonder of the night. Something of the urgent joy and beauty of the Eve touched Amos, for he finally rose and said,

"Well, I've got two fine children, anyhow." Then he filled up the stoves for the night and went to bed.

CHAPTER IV

THE RAVISHED NEST

"The young pine bends to the storm. The old pine breaks."--_The Murmuring Pine_.

It would be difficult to say which enjoyed the doll house more, Lydia or Patience. It would be difficult to say which one was the more touched, Lizzie or Amos by the package each found on the breakfast table. Amos unwrapped his to find therein a pipe tray fashioned from cigar box wood and stained with Lydia's walnut dye. Lizzie's gift was a flat black pin-cushion, with "Lizzie, with love from Lydia,"

embroidered crazily on it in red. Florence Dombey showed no emotion over her gift, a string of red beads that had a curious resemblance to asparagus seed-pods, but she wore them gracefully and stared round-eyed at all the festivities. Lydia and Patience each wore pinned to her dress a cotton handkerchief, Lizzie's gift.

John Levine appeared at noon, laden like a pack horse. This was his great opportunity during the year to do things for the Dudley children and he took full advantage of the moment. Books for Lydia, little toys for the baby, a pipe for Amos, a woolen dress pattern for Lizzie, a blue sailor suit for Lydia, a fur hood for Patience.

John's thin, sallow face glowed, his black eyes gleamed as he watched the children unwrap the packages. In the midst of the excitement, Lydia shrieked.

"My ducks! My ducks!" and bolted for the kitchen.

"The pie!" cried Lizzie, panting after her.

"Don't tell me they're spoiled!" groaned Amos, as with John and the baby, he followed into the kitchen.

"Safe!" shouted Lydia, on her knees before the oven. "Just the pope's nose is scorched! The pie is perfect."

"Let's eat before anything else happens," said Amos, nervously.

"Lord!" said John Levine, "who'd miss spending Christmas where there are children? I'd a gotten out here to-day if I'd had to come barefooted."

The dinner was eaten and p.r.o.nounced perfect. The gifts were re-examined and re-admired. John Levine, with Lydia and Florence Dombey on his lap, Amos with the drowsy little Patience in his arms, and Lizzie, her tired hands folded across her comfortable stomach, sat round the base burner while the wind rose outside and the boom of the ice-locked lake filled the room from time to time.

"Fearful cold when the ice cracks that way," said Amos.

"'The owl, for all his feathers was a-cold,'" murmured Lydia.

"Where'd you get that and what's the rest of it?" asked Levine.

"Selected Gems," replied Lydia. "It's a book at school.