of."

His wife looked up quickly.

"I thought that all over before I came to you, Jack; but I have known
Jessie longer than you have, and I know she won't misunderstand us. She
knows we can't give expensive presents, and she will care, as we do, for
the fun and the Christmas spirit. I know she will be glad to come, if
only for Billy's sake."

But Mrs. Farrington demurred a little, the next day, when the plan was
suggested to her.

"I have just promised Will to have you all over here," she said. "Still,
if you all will promise to come here for Christmas dinner and a bran pie
afterwards, Billy and I will come to your basket. We are so lonely that
it is a deed of charity to take us in."

For the next week, mystery lurked in every corner of the McAlister
house. With three novices to be trained in their Christmas rite, Hope
and Theodora and Hubert felt that this basket must surpass all those of
previous years, and they ransacked their brains, their house, and the
shops for the jokes and nonsensical offerings which added spice to their
simple presents. If the Christmas spirit of happiness and good-will were
the true test, the McAlisters lived up to the full tradition of the day.
Gifts simple and elaborate, hoary jokes and brand-new ones, quips and
cranks of every description, were enclosed in the bundles which went
into the shabby old basket, and the only clue to the possible contents
of the bundles lay in the fact that, the older the joke, the more fresh
and dainty was its outward disguise.

The basket stood in a deep bay-window; beside it on an easel was the
portrait of the children's own mother, placed there and wreathed in
Christmas greens by Mrs. McAlister's own hands. Old Susan had told her
that it had stood there in past years, and, that afternoon, the doctor
had come in, to find her bending over to wreathe it with holly and
trailing pine.

"It's like you, Bess," he said. "The children will be so happy. They
felt that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without this."

Supper was a hurried meal that night, and it was still early when they
gathered in the parlor, with Mulvaney beside the basket and Susan in
the doorway, to wait for their guests.

"Oh, I can't wait," Phebe wailed. "I know such lots of things in there.
I put in four bundles for Hu, and seven for Allyn, and two for papa,
only one's broken, and two for Teddy."

"Let me see." Hubert counted on his fingers. "I put in six for Ted, no,
seven, and four