g."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, _you're_ good, anyway, dearest, whatever you
say; and now I'm going to help you arrange the things. I suppose
there'll be lots more to-morrow, but we must get rid of these now.
Don't you wish nobody would do anything for us? Just the
children--dear little souls! I don't believe but what we can make Jim
and Susy believe in Santa Claus again; Benny is firm in the faith; he
put him into his prayer. I declare, his sweetness almost broke my
heart." At a knock: "Who's that, I wonder? Come in! Oh, it's you,
Maggie. Well?"

IV

THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN'S SISTERS

_Maggie_: "It's Mr. Fountain's sisters just telephoned up."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Have them come up at once, Maggie, of course." As
Maggie goes out: "Another interruption! If it's going to keep on like
this! Shouldn't you have thought they might have _sent_ their
presents?"

_Fountain_: "I thought something like it in Frank's case; but I didn't
say it."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And I don't know why _I_ say it, now. It's because
I'm so tired I don't know what I _am_ saying. Do forgive me! It's this
terrible Christmas spirit that gets into me. But now you'll see how
nice I can be to them." At a tap on the door: "Come in! Come in!
Don't mind our being in all this mess. So darling of you to come! You
can help cheer Clarence up; you know his Christmas Eve dumps." She
runs to them and clasps them in her arms with several half-open
packages dangling from her hands and contrasting their disarray with
the neatness of their silk-ribboned and tissue-papered parcels which
their embrace makes meet at her back. "Minnie! Aggie! To lug here,
when you ought to be at home in bed dying of fatigue! But it's just
like you, both of you. Did you ever see anything like the stores
to-day? Do sit down, or swoon on the floor, or anything. Let me have
those wretched bundles which are simply killing you." She looks at the
different packages. "'For Benny from Grandpa.' 'For a good girl, from
Susy's grandmother.' 'Jim, from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Aggie.' 'Lucy,
with love from Aggie and Minnie.' And Clarence! What hearts you _have_
got! Well, I always say there never were such thoughtful girls, and
you always show such taste and such originality. I long to get at the
things." She keeps fingering the large bundle marked with her
husband's name. "Not--not--a--"

_Minnie_: "Yes, a bath-robe. Unless you give him a cigar-cas