ughnuts shone suddenly very warmly.

Flame at least did not have to be reminded about the Seasons.

"Oh _mother_!" telephoned Flame almost at once, "It's--so much nearer
Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will
keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one
especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the
teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if
anything spoiled! A--turkey--or a--or a fur coat--or anything."

"I am--making doughnuts," confided her Mother with the faintest
possible taint of asperity.

"O--h," conceded Flame. "And Father's watching them? Then I'll hurry!
M--Mother?" deprecated the excited young voice. "You are always so
horridly right! Lopsy and Beautiful-Lovely and Blunder-Blot are _not_
Christmasing all alone in the Rattle-Pane House! There is a man with
them! Don't tell Father,--he's so nervous about men!"

"A--man?" stammered her Mother. "Oh I hope not a young man! Where did
he come from?"

"Oh I don't think he came at all," confided Flame. It was Flame who
was perplexed this time. "He looks to me more like a person who had
always been there! Like something I mean that the dogs found in the
attic! Quite crumpled he is! And with a red waistcoat!--A--A butler
perhaps?--A--A sort of a second hand butler? Oh Mother!--I wish we had
a butler!"

"Flame--?" interrupted her Mother quite abruptly. "Where are you doing
all this telephoning from? I only gave you eighteen cents and it was
to buy cereal with."

"Cereal?" considered Flame. "Oh that's all right," she glowed
suddenly. "I've paid cash for the telephoning and charged the cereal."

With a swallow faintly guttural Flame's Mother hung up the receiver.
"Dogs--do--not--have--butlers," she persisted unshakenly.

She was perfectly right. They did not, it seemed.

No one was quicker than Flame to acknowledge a mistake. Before five
o'clock Flame had added a telephone item to the cereal bill.

"Oh--Mother," questioned Flame. "The little red sweater and Tam that I
have on?--Would they be all right, do you think, for me to make a call in?
Not a formal call, of course,--just a--a neighborly greeting at the door?
It being Christmas Eve and everything!--And as long as I have to pass
right by the house anyway?--There is a lady at the Rattle-Pane House!
A--A--what Father would call a Lady Maiden!--Miss--"

"Oh not a real lady, I think," protested her Mother. "Not with all