A day or two before Christmas he drove over to Sunshine and returned
with a happy, tired face.

"You would take a Christmas present from me, wouldn't you?" he asked
with unprecedented humility.

"It's in a paper," he explained.

"What is it?" she asked uncomfortably, for she felt his serious look
upon her.

"It's--eh--a trifle that I think you will like," replied Ellesworth
without a smile.

* * * * *

Christmas came cheerfully into the mortgaged house. Georgiella cried a
little for her father's sake. In spite of her bereavement, and of the
fact that she was sure the sheriff would attach the house that day of
all others, she did not feel very wretched. She felt that she was wicked
because she was so happy. There were wings in her heart.

It was not the custom to hang up stockings at the Benson's.

"My things have always been put into the Ming vase," Georgiella
explained, "and the others went on the breakfast table."

She did not look at Ellesworth often. Her eyes dropped. Her cheeks were
like red camellias. She felt in a hurry all of the time. The young man
himself took the situation out in looking at his watch. It seemed to him
as if the world were turning over too fast. He thought of what he meant
to do stolidly, notwithstanding.

They went out and gathered mistletoe in the swamps. He climbed trees and
tore his hands and fell into the water with zest. They brought home a
barrelful of it. He thought how he had bought it at twenty-five cents a
spray on Washington street. He held a great branch of it behind
Georgiella over her head, and looked at her. She started like a wild
animal, and kept ahead of him all the way home.

On Christmas morning Ellesworth got up early--he had hardly slept; he
could not rest, and went softly downstairs. The door into the
dining-room was open, and she was there before him. She stood before the
Ming vase. The mistletoe branch to which he had fastened his present,
and which he had set into the vase to look like a little Christmas tree,
lay tossed beneath her feet. The pearly white berries were scattered on
the floor. The mortgage was in her hand--trust deeds, principal notes,
interest notes, insurance policy. She was turning the papers over
helplessly. She looked scared and was quite pale. Her bosom heaved
boisterously. She heard him and confronted him. She managed to stammer
out,--

"What, sir, does this mean?"

It required a brave man to tell