“Fardie doesn’t know what baby goin’ agive ’m for Kissemus!”

“Hello!  This looks like the real thing,” said Langshaw, stepping over the debris; “but what are all these clothes on the floor for?”

“Oh, Mary was dressing up and just dropped those things when she went to the village with Viney, though I called her twice to come back and pick them up,” said the mother, sweeping the garments out of the way.  “It’s so tiresome of her!  Oh, I know you stand up for everything Mary does, Joe Langshaw; but she is the hardest child to manage!”

Her tone insensibly conveyed a pride in the difficulty of dealing with her elder daughter, aged six.

“But did you ever see anything like Baby?  She can keep a secret as well as any one!  It does look Christmasy, though—­doesn’t it?  Of course all the work of the tree at the mission comes on me as usual.  The children, with the two Wickersham girls, were helping me until they got tired.  Why don’t you come and kiss father, Baby?  She is going to sweep up the floor with her little broom so that father will give her five cents.”

“I don’t want to fweep ’e floor!” said the child, snapping her blue eyes.

“She shall get her little broom and Fardie will help her,” said Langshaw, catching the child up in his arms and holding the round little form closely to him before putting her down carefully on her stubby feet.

Later, when the game of clearing up was over and the nickel clutched in Baby’s fat palm, he turned to his wife with a half-frown: 

“Don’t you think you are making the children rather mercenary, Clytie?  They seem to want to be paid for everything they do.  I’m just about drained out of change!”

“Oh, at Christmas!” said the wife expressively.

“Well, I hope nobody is going to spend any money on me; the only presents I want are those you make for me,” said Langshaw warningly.  He gave the same warning each year, undeterred by the nature of the articles produced.  His last year’s “Christmas” from Clytie had been a pair of diaphanous blue China-silk pyjamas that were abnormally large in chest and sleeves—­as for one of giant proportions—­and correspondingly contracted in the legs, owing to her cutting out the tops first and having to get the other necessary adjuncts out of the scant remainder of the material.  “You hear me, Clytie?”

“Yes, I hear,” returned Clytie in a bored tone.

“Do you know—­” Langshaw hesitated, a boyish smile overspreading his countenance.  “I was looking at that trout-rod in Burchell’s window to-day.  I don’t suppose you remember my speaking of it, but I’ve had my eye on it for a long time.”  He paused, expectant of encouraging interest.

“Oh, have you, dear?” said Clytie absently.  The room was gradually, under her fingers, resuming its normal appearance.  She turned suddenly with a vividly animated expression.

“I must tell you that you’re going to get a great surprise tonight—­it isn’t a Christmas present, but it’s something that you’ll like even better, I know.  It’s about something that George has been doing.  You’ll never guess what it is!”