rors. I'm frozen, and the
doors are open, of course. Have you been in the big parlors? Some
pretty things are in them, but faded and rather shabby now. Why
don't you go in the library? There's a roaring fire in there, and a
chair you can sit on. Every other one in the house has something in
it."

Laine followed the girl into the library, and as she held her hands
to the blaze she motioned him to sit down. "I don't believe anybody
in the world is as crazy about Christmas as Claudia. She gets the
whole county on the jump, and to-morrow night everything in it will
be here. Giving is all right, but Claudia takes it too far. The
house needs painting, and a furnace would make it a different place,
but she will do nothing until she has the money in the bank to pay
for it; and yet she will give everybody within miles a Christmas
present. When she took hold of things the place was dreadfully
mortgaged, and she's paid off every dollar; but, for chance,
stock-markets aren't in it with farming. Isn't that a pretty old
desk? I could sell lots of this furniture for them and get big money
for it, but I don't dare say so. They never talk money here. My
room hasn't a piece of carpet on it, and one of those old Joshua
Reynoldses in the hall would get so many things the house needs. I'm
a Philistine, I guess, as well as a Philadelphian, and I like new
things: plenty of bath-rooms and electric lights and steam heat. I
don't blame them for not selling the old silver and china or the
dining-room furniture, though it needs doing over pretty badly; but
some of those old periwigged pictures I'd sell in a minute. Plenty
of people would pay well for ancestors, and it's about all they've
got down here. Hello, Claudia; we were just talking about you!"

Claudia put down the armful of red roses she was carrying and began
to fill a tall vase with them. "Did you say anything that wasn't
nice?" She bit a piece of stem off. "If you did, it wasn't so." She
turned to Laine. "You ought to see mother. She rarely has such
flowers as you brought down--You have made her so happy. It was very
good of you."

"Good!" The girl from Philadelphia went out of the room. "If
only--" In his eyes no longer was restraint, and Claudia turned her
head as if listening to something outside.

"I believe mother is calling me," she said. "Would you mind telling
her, Mr. Laine, I am coming right away?"

XIX

CHRISTMAS

Laine looked at h