d care for
and take riding in a beautiful cart. Never had--no, she couldn't quite
imagine it.

After that there was no more reading off a list. Mary Jane and Alice began
making a list of their own, of what those children were to have for
Christmas.

"But," objected Mrs. Merrill, "you girls forget that things cost money--a
lot of money these days. And you can't possibly buy all those things and
get any Christmas of your own too."

"Humph!" grunted Mary Jane as she squeezed her face up tight in an
effort to write, "then we won't have one of our own! Haven't we got Marie
Georgiannamore and a cart and a nice house and warm
clothes--and--everything?"

That settled it. There would be a tree and dinner and a lot of fun in the
Merrill house on Christmas Day, but the presents were to go to their
adopted family to make _their_ Christmas one never to be forgotten.

If you have ever planned a Christmas for somebody who never, in all their
lives had one, you will know something about the fun that Mary Jane and
Alice had in the time that was left before Christmas. They were about the
busiest girls in all Chicago! They hurried home from school and they
worked Saturdays but, actually, as soon as they got one thing done they
thought of something else they wanted to make or buy and they had to begin
all over again. They made cookies and candies and dressed dolls, one for
each girl, and made a complete set of covers and pillows and "fixings" for
an adorable doll bed that Mr. Merrill made in the evenings. Alice had to
work pretty hard to get the pajamas all finished in time for there was
considerable work on each pair; but she got them finished and she could
hardly wait till Christmas to take them over to their family.

Mary Jane finished the muffler and mittens though she _almost_ had to knit
while she ate--towards the last--it takes a good many stitches to make a
muffler big enough for an eight year old boy. The muffler was a deep
crimson and the mittens a warm shade of gray with three rows of crimson in
the wrist end; Mary Jane had picked colors she was sure Tom would like.

At last the twenty-fourth of December came around--cold and snowy and just
the kind of a day for making a Christmas. The trees were bought and set on
the balcony, the turkeys, two of them, were in the pantry ready to dress
and three big baskets were set on the dining-room table ready for
packing.

"Now, then," said Mrs. Merrill, "if you have everything read