-out.

Carol's bed had been moved into the farthest corner of the room, and she
was lying on the outside, dressed in a wonderful dressing-gown that
looked like a fleecy cloud. Her golden hair fell in fluffy curls over
her white forehead and neck, her cheeks flushed delicately, her eyes
beamed with joy, and the children told their mother, afterwards, that
she looked as beautiful as the angels in the picture books.

There was a great bustle behind a huge screen in another part of the
room, and at half past five this was taken away, and the Christmas
dinner-table stood revealed. What a wonderful sight it was to the poor
little Ruggles children, who ate their sometimes scanty meals on the
kitchen table! It blazed with tall colored candles, it gleamed with
glass and silver, it blushed with flowers, it groaned with good things
to eat; so it was not strange that the Ruggleses, forgetting altogether
that their mother was a McGrill, shrieked in admiration of the fairy
spectacle. But Larry's behavior was the most disgraceful, for he stood
not upon the order of his going, but went at once for a high chair that
pointed unmistakably to him, climbed up like a squirrel, gave a
comprehensive look at the turkey, clapped his hands in ecstasy, rested
his fat arms on the table, and cried with joy, "I beat the hull lot o'
yer!" Carol laughed until she cried, giving orders, meanwhile,--"Uncle
Jack, please sit at the head, Sarah Maud at the foot, and that will
leave four on each side; Mamma is going to help Elfrida, so that the
children need not look after each other, but just have a good time."

A sprig of holly lay by each plate, and nothing would do but each little
Ruggles must leave his seat and have it pinned on by Carol, and as each
course was served, one of them pleaded to take something to her. There
was hurrying to and fro, I can assure you, for it is quite a difficult
matter to serve a Christmas dinner on the third floor of a great city
house; but if it had been necessary to carry every dish up a rope ladder
the servants would gladly have done so. There were turkey and chicken,
with delicious gravy and stuffing, and there were half a dozen
vegetables, with cranberry jelly, and celery, and pickles; and as for
the way these delicacies were served, the Ruggleses never forgot it as
long as they lived.

Peter nudged Kitty, who sat next him, and said, "Look, will yer, ev'ry
feller's got his own partic'lar butter; I s'pose that's to sho