Then I walked away as quiet as a Nun’s daughter.  But I was burning hot all the same, and so surprised at the way Martha spoke, so serious and unlike the way she usually speaks when mad, that I had to go on the back porch and make snowballs and throw hard at something before I was all right again.

But I wouldn’t let it ruin my beautiful day.  I wouldn’t.

That night, when I went to bed, I was so tired out with happiness I couldn’t half say my prayers.  But I knew God understood.  He let the Christ-child be born poor and lowly, so He could understand about Charity children, and everybody else who goes wrong because they don’t know how to go right.  So I just thanked Him, and thanked Him in my heart.

And when Miss Katherine kissed me good-night and tucked me in bed, she said I’d made her have a beautiful Christmas.  That I’d helped everybody and kept things from dragging, because I had enjoyed it so myself, and been so enthusiastic, and she was so glad I was born that way.

I thought she was making fun, it was so ridiculous, thanking me, little Mary Cary, who hadn’t done a thing but be glad and seen that nobody was forgot.

But she wasn’t making fun, and I went off to sleep and dreamed I was in a place called the Love-Land, where everybody did everything just for love.  Which shows it was a dreamland, for on earth there’re Brays and Pryors, and people too busy to be kind.  And in that Love-Land everything was done the other way, just backward from our way, and yourself came second instead of first.

X

THE REAGAN BALL

It is snowing fast and furious to-day.  It’s grand to watch it.  I love miracles, and it’s a miracle to see an ugly place turn into a palace of marble and silver with diamond decorations.  That’s what the Asylum is to-day.  I certainly would like to have seen the Reagan ball.  Miss Webb says it was the best show ever given in Yorkburg, and she enjoyed it, being particular fond of freaks.

Miss Katherine didn’t want to go, but Miss Webb made her.  For weeks that Reagan ball had been talked about, and Yorkburg knew things about it that had never been known about parties before, money not often being mentioned here.

Everybody knew what this ball was going to cost.  Knew the supper was coming from New York, with white waiters and kid gloves.  And what Mrs. Reagan and her daughters were going to wear.  That their dresses had been made in Europe, and that Mrs. Hamner hadn’t been invited, and that more money was coming to Yorkburg in the shape of one man than had ever been in it altogether before.

If I just could have put myself invisible on a picture-frame and looked down on that fleeting show I would have done it.  But not being able to work that miracle, I just heard what was going round, and it was very interesting, the things I heard.

Miss Webb and Miss Katherine and I think just alike about Mrs. Reagan.  I know, for I heard them talking one night just before the ball.