“Yes, go along,” assented her mistress ungraciously.

“Thank you, ’m,” said the servant demurely, but with a brightening of her blue eyes.  And presently the area door banged behind her quick-retreating footsteps.

“H’m!  Didn’t take her long to get ready!” muttered Miss Terry, giving the fire a vicious poke.  She was alone in the house, on Christmas Eve, and not a man, woman, or child in the world cared.  Well, it was what she wanted.  It was of her own doing.  If she had wished—­

She sat back in her chair, with thin, long hands lying along the arms of it, gazing into the fire.  A bit of paper there was crumbling into ashes.  Alone on Christmas Eve!  Even Norah had some relation with the world outside.  Was there not a stalwart officer waiting for her on the nearest corner?  Even Norah could feel a simple childish pleasure in candles and carols and merriment, and the old, old superstition.

“Stuff and nonsense!” mused Miss Terry scornfully.  “What is our Christmas, anyway?  A time for shopkeepers to sell and for foolish folks to kill themselves in buying.  Christmas spirit?  No!  It is all humbug,—­all selfishness, and worry; an unwholesome season of unnatural activities.  I am glad I am out of it.  I am glad no one expects anything of me,—­nor I of any one.  I am quite independent; blessedly independent of the whole foolish business.  It is a good time to begin clearing up for the new year.  I’m glad I thought of it.  I’ve long threatened to get rid of the stuff that has been accumulating in that corner of the attic.  Now I will begin.”

She tugged the packing-case an inch nearer the fire.  It was like Miss Terry to insist upon that nearer inch.  Then she raised the cover.  It was a box full of children’s battered toys, old-fashioned and quaint; the toys in vogue thirty—­forty—­fifty years earlier, when Miss Terry was a child.  She gave a reminiscent sniff as she threw up the cover and saw on the under side of it a big label of pasteboard unevenly lettered.

[Illustration:  PLAY BOX OF TOM TERRY AND ANGELINA TERRY (scrawl)]

“Humph!” she snorted.  There was a great deal in that “humph.”  It meant:  Yes, Tom’s name had plenty of room, while poor little Angelina had to squeeze in as well as she could.  How like Tom!  This accounted for everything, even to his not being in his sister’s house this very night.  How unreasonable he had been!

Miss Terry shrugged impatiently.  Why think of Tom to-night?  Years ago he had deliberately cut himself adrift from her interests.  No need to think of him now.  It was too late to appease her.  But here were all these toys to be got rid of.  The fire was hungry for them.  Why not begin?

Miss Terry stooped to poke over the contents of the box with lean, long fingers.  In one corner thrust up a doll’s arm; in another, an animal’s tail pointed heavenward.  She caught glimpses of glitter and tinsel, wheels and fragments of unidentifiable toys.