“And I’ve got to go at half past five to meet Father when he’s through with that wedding up-town, and then we’re going shopping.  I’ve got a lot to talk about.  The Beckwith babies are awful sick.  I guess it would be a good thing if they were to die.  They are always having colic and cramps and croup, and they’ve got a coughing mother and a lazy father; but they won’t die.  Some babies never will.  Did you know Mr. Rheinhimer had been on another spree?” Carmencita, feet fastened in the rounds of her chair, elbows on knees, and chin in the palms of her hand, nodded affirmatively at the face in front of her.  “Worst one yet.  He smashed all the window-panes in the bedroom, and broke two legs of their best chairs doing it, and threw the basin and pitcher out of the window.  He says he’d give any man living five hundred dollars, if he had it, if he’d live with his wife a month and not shake her.  She is awful aggravating.  She’s always in curl papers, and don’t wear corsets, and nags him to death.  She says she wishes you’d send him to a cure or something.  And I want to tell you about Father’s present.”

For twenty minutes they talked long and earnestly.  Carmencita’s list of names and number of pennies were gone over again and again, and when at last she got up to go the perplexities of indecision and adjustment were mainly removed, and she sighed with satisfaction.

“I’m very much obliged to you for helping me fix it.”  The piece of paper was carefully pinned to the inside of the coat.  “I’m not going to get anything but Father’s present to-night.  I won’t have to go to school to-morrow, and I want the buying to last as long as possible.  Isn’t it funny the way Christmas makes you feel?”

Carmencita’s hands came suddenly together, and, pressing them on her breast, her eyes grew big and shining.  Standing first on one foot and then on the other, she swayed slightly forward, then gave a leap in the air.

“I can’t help it, Miss Frances, I really can’t!  It’s something inside me—­something that makes me wish I was all the world’s mother!  And I’m so squirmy and thrilly and shivery, thinking of the things I’d do if I could, that sometimes I’m bound to jump—­just bound to!  I’m almost sure something nice is going to happen.  Did you ever feel that way, Miss Frances?”

“I used to feel that way.”  The clear dark eyes for a moment turned from the eager ones of the child.  “It’s a very nice way to feel.  When one is young—­though perhaps it is not so much youth as hope in the heart, and love, and—­”

“I don’t love everybody.  I loathe Miss Cattie Burns.  She’s the very old dev—­I promised Father I wouldn’t say even a true mean thing about anybody for a month, and I’ve done it twice!  I’d much rather love people, though.  I love to love!  It makes you feel so nice and warm and homey.  If I had a house I’d have everybody I know—­I mean all the nice everybodies—­to spend Christmas with me.  Isn’t it funny that at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for—­for—­I don’t know what for, exactly, but it’s something you don’t mind so much not having at other times.”