“Give me some now,” said the old man eagerly; “don’t wait to take out the rest of the things.”

“And here’s a new frock for you, Katey,” old Ann went on, after making John happy with his treasures, “a real bright one, and a pair of shoes, and some real woollen stockings; oh! how warm you’ll be!”

“Oh, how nice, Mammy!” cried Katey, jumping about.  “When will you make my frock?”

“To-morrow,” answered the mother, “and you can go to school again.”

“Oh, goody!” she began, but her face fell.  “If only Molly Parker could go too!”

“You wait and see,” answered Ann, with a knowing look.  “Who knows what Christmas will bring to Molly Parker?”

“Now here’s a nice big roast,” the happy woman went on, still unpacking, “and potatoes and turnips and cabbage and bread and butter and coffee and—­”

“What in the world!  You goin’ to give a party?” asked the old man between the puffs, staring at her in wonder.

“I’ll tell you just what I am going to do,” said Ann firmly, bracing herself for opposition, “and it’s as good as done, so you needn’t say a word about it.  I’m going to have a Christmas dinner, and I’m going to invite every blessed soul in this house to come.  They shall be warm and full for once in their lives, please God!  And, Katey,” she went on breathlessly, before the old man had sufficiently recovered from his astonishment to speak, “go right upstairs now, and invite every one of ’em from the fathers down to Mrs. Parker’s baby to come to dinner at three o’clock; we’ll have to keep fashionable hours, it’s so late now; and mind, Katey, not a word about the money.  And hurry back, child, I want you to help me.”

To her surprise, the opposition from her husband was less than she expected.  The genial tobacco seemed to have quieted his nerves, and even opened his heart.  Grateful for this, Ann resolved that his pipe should never lack tobacco while she could work.

But now the cares of dinner absorbed her.  The meat and vegetables were prepared, the pudding made, and the long table spread, though she had to borrow every table in the house, and every dish to have enough to go around.

At three o’clock when the guests came in, it was really a very pleasant sight.  The bright warm fire, the long table, covered with a substantial, and, to them, a luxurious meal, all smoking hot.  John, in his neatly brushed suit, in an armchair at the foot of the table, Ann in a bustle of hurry and welcome, and a plate and a seat for every one.

How the half-starved creatures enjoyed it; how the children stuffed and the parents looked on with a happiness that was very near to tears; how old John actually smiled and urged them to send back their plates again and again, and how Ann, the washerwoman, was the life and soul of it all, I can’t half tell.

After dinner, when the poor women lodgers insisted on clearing up, and the poor men sat down by the fire to smoke, for old John actually passed around his beloved tobacco, Ann quietly slipped out for a few minutes, took four large bundles from a closet under the stairs, and disappeared upstairs.  She was scarcely missed before she was back again.