is he who finds
Peggy, half as hour later, all alone in the kitchen. The mother and the
older daughters are gathered about the sitting-room hearth, engaged in
the dear, delicious talk about the little things that are always left
out of letters.

The doctor interrupts them.

"Peggy is all alone," he says.

"But we're having such a good talk," the mother pleads, "and Peggy will
be done in no time! Peggy is so handy!"

"Well, girls?" is all the doctor says, with quiet command in his eyes,
and Peggy is not left to wash the Christmas dishes all alone. Because
she is smiling and her cheeks are bright, her sisters do not notice that
her eyes are wet, for Peggy is hotly ashamed of certain thoughts and
feelings that she cannot down. She forgets them for a while, however,
sitting on the hearth-rug, snuggled against her father's knee in the
Christmas twilight.

Yet the troublesome thoughts came back in the evening, when Peggy sat
upstairs in the dark with Minna, vainly trying to induce the excited
little girl to go to sleep, while bursts of merriment from the family
below were always breaking in upon the two in their banishment.

There was another restless night of it with the little niece, and
another too early waking. Everybody but Minna was sleepy enough, and
breakfast was a protracted meal, to which the "children" came down
slowly one by one. Arna did not appear at all, and Peggy carried up to
her the daintiest of trays, all of her own preparing. Arna's kiss of
thanks was great reward. It was dinner-time before Peggy realized it,
and she had hoped to find a quiet hour for her Latin.

The dreadful regent's examination was to come the next week, and Peggy
wanted to study for it. She had once thought of asking Arna to help her,
but Arna seemed so tired.

In the afternoon Esther came to see her chum, and to take her
home with her to spend the night. The babies, fretful with
after-Christmas-crossness, were tumbling over their aunt, and sadly
interrupting confidences, while Peggy explained that she could not go
out that evening. All the family were going to the church sociable, and
she must put the babies to bed.

"I think it's mean," Esther broke in. "Isn't it your vacation as well as
theirs? Do make that child stop pulling your hair!"

If Esther's words had only not echoed through Peggy's head as they did
that night! "But it is so mean of me, so mean of me, to want my own
vacation!" sobbed Peggy in the darkness. "I o