Claudia was holding Channing, half-asleep in her arms;
and at her feet Dorothea, on a footstool, elbows on knees and chin in
the palms of her hands, was listening so intently to the story being
told that for half a minute his presence was not noted.

Presently she looked up and saw him. "Come in." Her voice was a
high whisper. "It's the grandest story. Wait a minute, Cousin
Claudia." She ran toward the door and drew him in. "You'll have to
stay with us," she said, "because mother and father have gone out.
Some kind of a relation is in town and they had to go. Channing's
got an awful cold, and mother said he could have anything he wanted,
and he took Cousin Claudia to tell him stories. She's been doing it
ever since dinner. He's asleep now, but--"

"I'm not asleep." Channing's eyes opened blinkingly. "She said they
found the squirrel in a hollow down by the chestnut-tree, and the
moonlight on the snow--the moonlight--on--the--snow." His head fell
back on Claudia's bosom and, with a smile, she nodded to Laine and
held out her hand.

"The spirit is valiant, but the flesh prevails. I'm so sorry Hope
and Channing are out."

"I'm not." He drew a cushioned wicker chair close to the fire.
"It's been long since I heard a good fairy story. Please don't stop."

Dorothea pushed the stool aside and settled herself comfortably in
her uncle's lap. "It isn't a fairy story. You don't tell fairy
stories at Christmas; they're for summer, when the windows are open
and they can hide in the flowers and ride on the wind--the fairies, I
mean--but this is Christmas." She twisted herself into a knot of
quivering joy and hugged her arms with rapturous intensity. "It's
all in my bones, and I'm nothing but shivers. Isn't it grand to have
Christmas in your bones? Have you got it in yours?" She held
Laine's face between her hands and looked at it anxiously. "Cousin
Claudia has it in hers. She and I are just alike. We've been
filling stockings to-day for some children Timkins told us about.
They live near him, and their mother is sick and their father is
dead, and they haven't a bit of money. Channing and I are going to
hang our stockings up here before we go to grandmother's, and we're
going to hang them up there again. I wish we were going to Cousin
Claudia's. Of course, I love to go to grandmother's, but she lives
in town and they don't have snow in Savannah; and at Cousin Claudia's
they have everything. I mean ev