Mrs. Tennant could not help laughing as Kathleen described the sort of girl she would be if she adopted Alice’s role.

“But the question is now,” said the girl, “what are we to do to make her have some of these pretty things?  Mightn’t I give the blouse to you first, and you could give it to her?  She’d look so sweet in this pink blouse when she went to tea at her chosen friends.  She’d be almost pretty if she was nicely dressed.  I’ve got this white one for little Ruth Craven, and I want Alice to have this so badly.  Can’t you manage it, dear Mrs. Tennant?”

Mrs. Tennant felt tempted.  The blouse was very dainty and pretty, and unlike anything she could afford to buy for her only daughter.  Kathleen threw her arms round her neck and kissed her.

“You will—­you will, dear Mrs. Tennant,” she said.  “It is yours entirely.  You tell her you got it at a cheap sale.  Say you went to a jumble sale and bought it; you paid one-and-twopence-halfpenny for it.  That’s the right figure, isn’t it, for the best things at a jumble sale?  Tell her it’s quite new, and was thrown in promiscuous like.”

“But, my darling child, I can’t tell her what isn’t true.  She would wear it if she didn’t know it came from you.  She would not only wear it, but she would delight in it; but nothing would induce her to take it if she thought you had given it.”

“Then don’t let’s tell her.  Besides, it wouldn’t be true, for I have given it to you, dear.  And now, see, here is something for your sweet self.  I wrote to Aunt Katie, and Aunt Katie is so clever.  See! come to the glass.”

Kathleen had opened a cardboard box, and out of it she took a black velvet bonnet with nodding plumes and a little pink strip of velvet fastened under the brim.  This she put with trembling fingers on Mrs. Tennant’s head.  Mrs. Tennant was in reality not at all old, and she looked quite young and pretty in the new toque.

“You are charming, that’s what you are,” said Kathleen.  “And I can’t take it back, for you know perfectly well that it is a wee bit too old for me.  You will have to wear it.”

“But what will Alice say?”

“Never mind.  Don’t tell her; just be mum.  Say, ’it is mine, and I mean to wear it.’  Oh, I’d manage Alice if I happened to be her mother.”

“I don’t think you would, dear.”

“Indeed, but I would.  And now I must consider whom I am to give the other things to.”

When Kathleen had finally parcelled out her treasures there was not such a great deal left for herself, for this girl and the other who had taken her fancy were all allotted a treasure out of that famous box.  And there was a thick albert chain made of solid silver for Ben, and a keyless silver watch for David; and what could boys possibly want more?  Kathleen had remembered all her friends, and Aunt Katie O’Flynn was more than willing to carry out her request.