"Ye make ma heart glad juist wi' the looks o' ye," she added. "And there's many and many a lonely heart beside mine ma Corner House bairns have made to rejoice. I thank G.o.d for ye, ma dearies."

Mrs. MacCall always spoke more broadly when she was moved by sentiment.

She wiped her gla.s.ses now and prepared to descend to the kitchen when suddenly a chorus of voices broke out below the bedroom windows, in the side yard toward Willow Street.

"Hech, now! what have we here?" cried the housekeeper, going smartly to the window and throwing up the shade and then the sash. The sound poured in-a full chorus of fresh young voices singing a Christmas carol.

"Cover yersel's, ma dearies," advised Mrs. MacCall, "and leesten."

"Oh, oh!" whispered Agnes, fairly hugging herself as she sat upon the bed with her feet drawn up. "It's just as though we lived in a castle-and had a moat and drawbridge and fiefs-"

"Oh," interposed Dot. "That's Mr. Joe Maroni strumming his guitar. I've heard him before."

"Why!" gasped Ruth. "It's the children from Meadow Street."

She ran to the window to peer out. It was a very cold morning, and there was only a narrow band of crimson, pink, and saffron light along the eastern horizon.

She could easily distinguish the st.u.r.dy Italian with his guitar which he touched so lightly in accord with the children's voices. There were fully a dozen of the little singers-German and Italian, Jew and Gentile-singing the praise of Christ our Lord in an old Christmas carol.

A bulky figure in the background puzzled Ruth at first; but when a hoa.r.s.e voice commanded: "Now sing de Christ-childt song-coom!

Ein-zwei-drei!" she recognized Mrs. Kranz, the proprietor of the delicatessen store.

The l.u.s.tily caroling children were some of the Maronis, Sadie Goronofski and her half-brothers and sisters, and other children of the tenants in the Meadow Street property from which the Corner House girls collected rents.

"Oh, my!" murmured Agnes again. "Isn't it _great_? We ought to throw them largesse-"

"What's that, Aggie?" demanded Dot. "It-it sounds like a kind of cheese.

Mr. Maroni sells it."

"No, no!" gasped Tess. "That's gorgonzola-I asked Maria. And-it-smells!"

"Goosey!" laughed Agnes. "Largesse is money. Rich folks used to throw it to the poor."

"My!" observed Dot. "I guess they don't do it now. Poor folks have to work for money."

"It's just dear of them to come and serenade us," Ruth declared. "But it's so cold! Do call them in to get warm, Mrs. Mac."

Already the housekeeper was scurrying downstairs. She had routed out Linda early to make coffee against this very emergency, for Mrs. MacCall had known that the Corner House girls were to be serenaded on Christmas morning.

The four sisters dressed hastily and ran down to greet their little friends from Meadow Street, as well as Mrs. Kranz and Joe Maroni. The latter had brought "the leetla padrona," as he called Ruth, his usual offering of a basket of fruit. Mrs. Kranz kissed the Kenway girls all around, declaring:

"Posies growing de garten in iss nodt so sveet like you kinder. Merry, merry Christmas!"

While the carol singers drank cups of hot coffee the Corner House girls brought forth the presents they had intended to send over to Meadow Street later in the day, but now could give in person to each child.

The choristers went away with merry shouts just at sunrise, and then Dot and Tess insisted that the family should troop into the dining room to take down the rest of the stockings.

Breakfast this morning was a "movable feast" and lasted till nine o'clock. n.o.body expected to eat any luncheon; indeed, Mrs. MacCall declared she could not take the time to prepare any.

"You bairns must tak' a 'bit in your fistie,' as we used to say, and be patient till dinner time," she said.

Dinner was to be early. Mrs. Eland and Miss Pepperill came in the doctor's automobile soon after noon, and Tess and Dot were at once engaged in entertaining these guests in the sitting room.

It was a real blessing to the little Corner House girls, for it kept them out of the dining room, where they could not keep their eyes off the heavily laden tree, the fruit of which must not be touched until after dinner.

Neale O'Neil had, of course, come over for his stocking and had expressed his grat.i.tude to his friends at the old Corner House. But, as Ruth had been glum the day before, so Neale was silent now. Agnes became quite angry with him and sent him home in the middle of the forenoon.

"And you needn't come to dinner, sir-_nor afterward_-if you can't have a Christmas smile upon your face," she told him, severely.

It was while the preparations for dinner were in full progress, that Ruth heard voices on the side porch. Rather, a voice, resonant and commanding which said:

"Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye! I proclaim good tidings to all creatures.

Come! gather around me and list to my word. I bear gifts, frankincense and myrrh-"

"Goodness me!" cried Agnes. "That's Seneca Sprague. And look at the cats!"

The girls ran out upon the porch to see a tall, thin, gray-haired man, his abundant hair sweeping his shoulders, dressed in a flapping linen duster and with list slippers on his feet-a queer enough costume indeed for a sharp winter's day. But Seneca Sprague was never more warmly clad than this, and had been known to plod barefooted through snowdrifts.

"Your humble servant, Miss Ruth," said the queer old man, doffing the straw hat and bowing low, for he held the oldest Corner House girl in much deference. "I came to bring you good cheer and wish you a mult.i.tude of blessings. Verily, verily, I say unto you, they that give of their substance to the poor shall receive again a thousand fold. May your cup of joy be full to overflowing, Miss Ruth."

"Thank you, Mr. Sprague," replied the girl, gravely, for she made it a rule never to laugh at the "prophet," as he was called, and who people said was demented upon religious subjects.

"Thank you for your good wishes," said Ruth. "And what have you brought the cats?"

For Sandyface and all her progeny had come to meet the prophet and were purring about him and otherwise showing much pleasure. Even Almira had left her young family in the woodshed to come to meet Mr. Seneca Sprague.

From a side pocket of his duster Seneca brought forth a packet. He broke off a little of the pressed herb in the packet and sprinkled it on the stoop. The cats fairly scrambled over each other for a chance to eat some of the catnip, or to roll in it.

They did not quarrel over it. Indeed, the intoxicating qualities of their favorite herb gave the cats quite a Christmas spirit.

Mrs. MacCall brought a shallow pan of milk and some more of the herb was sprinkled in it by the old prophet. The kittens-Starboard, Port, Hard-a-lee and Mainsheet-lapped this up eagerly.

"It's very kind of you to bring the catnip, Mr. Sprague," Ruth said.

"Won't you come in and taste Agnes' Christmas cake? She is getting to be a famous cake baker."

"With pleasure," said the queer old man.

After Seneca Sprague's old hut on the river dock was burned at Thanksgiving, and the Corner House girls had found him a room in one of their tenements to live in, he had become a frequent visitor at the old Corner House. Ruth would have ushered him into the sitting room where Mrs. Eland and her sister were; but Seneca shrank from that.

"I am not a society man-nay, verily," quoth the prophet. "The s.e.x does not interest me."

"But it is only Mrs. Eland and her sister, who are our guests to-day for dinner," Ruth said, as she led him into the dining room, while Agnes sped to get the cake.

"Ha! Those Aden girls," said Seneca, referring to the hospital matron and the red-haired school teacher by their family name. "I remember Lemuel Aden well-their uncle. A hard man was Lemuel-a hard man."

"I believe he must have been a very wicked man," declared Agnes, coming back with a generous slice of cake, and overhearing this. "See how he let people think that his brother was dishonest, while _he_ pocketed money belonging to the clients of Mrs. Eland's father. Oh! we know all about it."

"Ah!" said Seneca again, tasting the cake. "Very delicious. I know that you put none of the fat of the accursed swine in your cake as some of these women around here do."

"Lard, he means," whispered Ruth, for Seneca followed the rabbinical laws of the Jews and ate no pork.