esque monkey up
and down the rod, chuckling in pleased anticipation. And Mary, with her
readiness to put herself into another's place, smiled with her, sharing
sympathetically the anticipation of her return. Straightway in her
imagination, she herself was a grandmother, going home to some adoring
old Silas, who had shared her joys and troubles for over half a century.

Up to this moment she had been thinking that it could not be possible
for any one to have a happier Christmas than she was having. A dozen
times she had smoothed the soft fur of her boa with a caressing hand,
and slipped back her glove to delight her eyes with the sight of her
bloodstone ring, while her thoughts ran on ahead to the house-party
towards which they were speeding. But the old lady's words had opened up
a vista that set her to day-dreaming.

If by the road or by the hill or by the far seaway "he" should really
come, some day, then of course the Christmases they would spend together
would be happier than this. Jack had always said that she would have her
"innings" when she was a grandmother. All her life Mary had been
dreaming romances about other people, now in a vague sweet way those
dreams began to centre around herself.

It was almost dark when they left the train. Phil was at the station to
meet them with a sleigh and a team of spirited black horses.

"Oh, sleighbells!" sighed Joyce, ecstatically, as she climbed into the
back seat beside Betty. "I haven't been behind any since I left
Plainsville. I wish we had forty miles to go. Nothing makes me feel so
larky as the sound of sleighbells."

Phil glanced back over his shoulder. "It is a bare mile and a half to
the house, but I told Eugenia I'd bring you home the roundabout way to
make the drive longer, if you all were not cold. What do you say?"

"The long way by all means!" cried Joyce and Betty in the same breath.

Phil laughed. "The ayes have it. Even Mary's eyes, although she doesn't
say anything," he added, seeing the beaming smile that crossed her face
at the prospect of a longer drive. "They are shining like two stars," he
went on mischievously, amused to see the colour flame up into her
cheeks, and noticing how becoming it was. Then his mettlesome horses
claimed his attention for awhile.

Later, as he looked back from time to time, in conversation with the
older girls, his glance rested on Mary, sitting beside him as contented
and happy as a kitten in those becoming furs, and