Roger's excited eyes, gave the signal to unmask.
By the fire a mysterious little knot of guests had been silently
gathering, and now as Aunt Ellen Leslie removed her mask, hand and mask
halted in mid-air as if fixed by the stare of Medusa, and the face above
the brown-gold brocade flamed crimson. For here in Puritan garb was John
Leslie, Jr., and his radiant wife--and Philip and Howard, smiling
Quakers, and Anne and Margaret and Ellen with a trio of husbands, and
beyond a laughing jester in cap and bells, whose dark, handsome face was
a little too reckless and tired about the eyes, Roger thought, for a
really happy Christmas guest--young Doctor Ralph.
As Aunt Ellen's startled eyes swept slowly from the smiling faces of her
children to the proud and chuckling Doctor who had spent Heaven knows
how many dollars in telegraphed commands--she laughed a little and cried
a little and then mingled the two so queerly that she needs must wipe
her eyes and catch at Roger's chair for support, whereupon a kindly
little hand slipped suddenly into hers and Roger looked up and smiled
serenely.
"Don't cry, Aunt Ellen!" he begged shyly. "I knew all about it too and
the Doctor--_he_ did it all!"
"And merry fits he gave us all by telegram, too, mother!" exclaimed
Philip with a grin.
"Moreover," broke in John, patting his mother's shoulder, "there are
eleven kids packed away upstairs like sardines--we hid 'em away while
dad and you were lost, and--" but here with a deafening racket the
stairs door burst wide open and with a swoop and a scream eleven
pajama-ed young bandits with starry eyes bore down upon Aunt Ellen and
the Doctor.
"Great Scott!" exclaimed John, thoroughly scandalized, "you disgraceful
kids! Which one of you stirred this up?" But the guilty face at the tail
of the romping procession was the face of old Asher.
Radiantly triumphant the old Doctor swung little John Leslie 3rd to his
shoulder and faced his laughing family and as old Annie appeared with a
steaming tray--he seized a mug of cider and held it high aloft.
"To the ruddy warmth of the Christmas log and the Christmas home
spirit--" he cried--"to the home-keeping hearts of the country-side!
Gentlemen--I give you--A Country home and a Country Christmas! May more
good folk come to know them!" And little John Leslie cried hoarsely--
"Hooray, grandpop, hooray for a Country Christmas!"
Carelessly alive to the merry spirit of the night, the jester presently
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