Beryl had shocked her
with the heresy: "Christmas is just for rich people, anyway."

"It is not. Oh, it isn't," Robin had cried in remonstrance. But she
could not tell of her and Jimmie's happy Christ-days without giving way
to the tears which, at the thought, scalded the backs of her eyes. It
had not been alone the holly and pine of the shop windows, or the simple
gifts Jimmie's loyal and more fortunate friends brought, or the usual
merry feast that had made them happy; it had been a deep and beautiful
understanding of the Infinite Love that had given the Christ-child to
the world, that Love which surpassed even Jimmie's love for her or hers
for Jimmie, and that was hers and everyone elses. She had felt it first
when, a very little girl, she had gone, once, with Jimmie into the
purple shadows of a great church, where the air was sweet with incense
and vibrating with the muted notes of an organ. She had stood with
Jimmie before a little cradle that had seemed beautiful with gold and
precious colors but, when she looked again, was a humble thing of wood
and straw, and what she had thought so bright was the radiance of
candles and the reflection from the many-colored windows. Then she had
looked at the cradle more closely and had found that it held a beautiful
wax babe. When Jimmie tugged at her hand she had reluctantly turned
away. At the same time a shabby old woman and a little boy, who had been
kneeling nearby, arose, and the old woman and the little boy had smiled
at her--a _different_ smile and she had smiled back. On the way home
Jimmie had explained to her that the Gift of the Christ-child was the
great universal gift and belonged to everyone, the world over. She knew,
then, why the shabby old woman had smiled--it was over the Gift they
shared.

"Christmas is for _everybody_," she finished.

"Well, all it means to me now that I'm big," pursued Beryl, "is stores
full of lovely things and crowded with people lucky enough to have money
to buy them. And talking about how much everything is. I heard a woman
once saying she had to spend five dollars on her aunt because her aunt
always spent five dollars on her. That's why I say Christmas is for the
rich--it's a sort of general exchange and take it back if you don't like
it or have half a dozen like 'em, or put it away and send it to some one
next Christmas. Miss Lewis, at the Settlement where mother worked, gave
a book to a lady one Christmas and got it back the next,