dinner, he looked terribly
disappointed, and wanted to know why. 'The reason is, Mr. Leigh,' I
said, 'because you ate it yesterday. I intended to have plum-pudding
to-day, but as Mrs. Gray had unexpected company, I sent it over to
her; and my own opinion is, it is more than you deserved to have had a
taste of it.'

"Maybe you think he wasn't teased. He didn't hear the last of that
very soon. Yes, indeed, it was all true. Mrs. Gray and I were good
friends and often helped each other out in an emergency. Well, you
will think me a most unprofitable customer; here I have talked a blue
streak, as Sarah says, and haven't bought a thing."

"Nevertheless, I hope you will come again soon, and I wish success to
the pudding," Norah said, following her visitor to the door.

Being off the beaten track of trade, the rush at the shop was over
before Christmas Eve, and Marion and Norah, leaving Susanna in charge,
went down town on a lark, as Norah said, and came home loaded with
holly and mistletoe.

It was after their late dinner and Norah was putting up the last bit
of holly, when Mammy Belle came in. "Miss Norah, honey, kin you trim a
Chris'mus tree?" she asked.

"Why, yes, I have trimmed many a one."

"I done promise James Mandeville he should have one, for him an' his
papa in the mawnin',--Marse Tom's comin' home; but look like I ain't
got good sense, and I seed Miss Maimie do it las' year." Mammy Belle's
tone was despairing.

"Never mind, we'll do it for you. I might have thought of it, only I
have been so busy," said Norah. "Don't you want to go, Marion?"

Marion was more than ready for anything so in keeping with the night,
and gathering up some unused holly and a box of ornaments for the
tree, they accompanied Mammy Belie to the small house, half a block
distant on Pleasant Street.

It was a tiny place, quite simply and tastefully furnished, but
betraying in many trifling ways the absence of the mistress. James
Mandeville was fast asleep in his crib upstairs, where Mammy Belle
conducted them to peep at him.

"I hope Miss Maimie won't mind our doing this," Norah whispered, as
they went down again.

"I don't believe she will," Marion answered, moving about the tiny
parlor, changing the position of a table here, a chair there, till the
whole room had taken on a new look. The tree in the corner by the
window bore melancholy witness to Mammy Belle's lack of ability in
that line, but under Norah's fingers it began at