he glanced up with
merry, yet wistful eyes.

"You are right. We'll have him in at once, or he will come hopping on
one leg;" and away hurried his mother, laughing, too, for whistles,
shouts, thumps, and violent demonstrations of all kinds had been heard
from the room where Jack was raging with impatience, while he waited for
his share of the surprise.

Jill could hardly lie still when she heard the roll of another chair-bed
coming down the hall, its passage enlivened with cries of "Starboard!
Port! Easy now! Pull away!" from Ralph and Frank, as they steered the
recumbent Columbus on his first voyage of discovery.

"Well, I call that handsome!" was Jack's exclamation, when the full
beauty of the scene burst upon his view. Then he forgot all about it and
gave a whoop of pleasure, for there beside the fire was an eager face,
two hands beckoning, and Jill's voice crying, joyfully,--

"I'm here! I'm here! Oh, do come, quick!" Down the long room rattled the
chair, Jack cheering all the way, and brought up beside the other one,
as the long-parted friends exclaimed, with one accord,--

"Isn't this jolly!"

It certainly did look so, for Ralph and Frank danced a wild sort of
fandango round the tree, Dr. Whiting stood and laughed, while the two
mothers beamed from the door-way, and the children, not knowing whether
to laugh or to cry, compromised the matter by clapping their hands and
shouting, "Merry Christmas to everybody!" like a pair of little maniacs.

Then they all sobered down, and the busy ones went off to the various
duties of the day, leaving the young invalids to repose and enjoy
themselves together.

"How nice you look," said Jill, when they had duly admired the pretty
room.

"So do you," gallantly returned Jack, as he surveyed her with unusual
interest.

They did look very nice, though happiness was the principal beautifier.
Jill wore a red wrapper, with the most brilliant of all the necklaces
sparkling at her throat, over a nicely crimped frill her mother had made
in honor of the day. All the curly black hair was gathered into a red
net, and a pair of smart little moccasins covered the feet that had not
stepped for many a weary day. Jack was not so gay, but had made himself
as fine as circumstances would permit. A gray dressing-gown, with blue
cuffs and collar, was very becoming to the blonde youth; an immaculate
shirt, best studs, sleeve-buttons, blue tie, and handkerchief wet with
cologne sticking out