Anne was very grateful but very sure that she did not want a doll and that she would like Susie and Lois to have it.  So Christmas afternoon, she and Pat, accompanied by Miss Drayton and Mr. Patterson, went to re-present the doll.  The sewing-machine was silent for once, and the Callahan family was seated around a table spread with turkey, cranberry sauce, ham, pickles, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, cabbage, cake, mince pie, ice-cream, apples, and oranges.

“They say some folks put things on the table one by one, but we likes to have them where we can see them all one time,” remarked Mrs. Callahan who was feeding the baby with turkey and pickle.

“We’se eated two dinners a’ready,” said Lois.

“Mommer told all the ladies that asked us as how we wanted a Christmas dinner and we got three,” explained Peggy.

“And et ’em, too,” Mrs. Callahan declared.  “The Charity lady told me just to ask for one—­stingy old thing!  I knowed my children’s stomachs and I got ’em filled up good.  Run around the table again now, you John Edward and Elmore, so’s to jostle your victuals down and make room for the cake and ice-cream.”

Miss Drayton presently heard a great smacking of lips from the corner where the twins sat.  They had put their ice-cream together on one plate and were feeding each other.  Elmore put a generous spoonful in John Edward’s mouth.

“Smack your lips—­loud—­so I can taste it,” he said.  “Now it’s your turn to give me a spoonful.”

“M-m-m! ain’t it good?” exclaimed John Edward.  “I smacked my lips loudest—­didn’t I, Peggy?”

But Peggy, talking aside with Anne, did not heed him.

“It was very, very, very good of you all to send me the doll,” said Anne; “but truly, I’d rather you’d keep it for Susie and Lois.  I’m getting too big to play dolls, anyway.”

Skipping homeward with her hands snuggled in her new muff, Anne confided to Miss Drayton, “I don’t hate it near so bad about Honey-Sweet now.  I love her just the same most dearly.  And, just think! it was her being lost that made you find me.  Peggy says they had a be-yu-tiful funeral for her.  Mrs. Callahan covered the coffin with white paper and they shovelled in the dirt and put on the grave some real roses that John Edward found in an ash barrel.  Wasn’t that nice?  Oh! this is such a nice world!”

* * * * *

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