r
knowledge that she was coming home again to them, well and strong,
and they hung the wreaths in the windows and wound greens about the
lights and trimmed a tree for Shirley with thankful and merry
hearts. Doctor Hugh had missed so many home Christmas Days that he
in particular, enjoyed the preparations and his attempts at secrets
and his insistence on tasting all of Winnie's dishes drove the girls
into fits of laughter. A pile of packages surrounded every place on
Christmas morning and there was something pretty and practical and
purely nonsensical for each one from the doctor. He, in turn,
declared that for once in his life he had everything he wanted. Aunt
Trudy's gift to her nephew and each of her nieces was a cheque and
the announcements that followed were characteristic.

"What are you going to get, Hugh?" asked Sarah curiously, when the
nature of her slip of paper had been explained to her.

"Books," said Doctor Hugh, promptly, smiling at his aunt.

"Music and a new music case, a leather one," declared Rosemary, her
eyes shining.

"I'd like to buy a dog," said Sarah, and grinned good-naturedly at
the groan which greeted her modest wish.

"You'd better buy an electric heater for the cats," suggested
Winnie. "I'm forever taking 'em out of the oven; some day I'll
forget to look, and there will be baked cats when you come down."

Shirley was distressed at this dismal prediction, but Sarah did not
take it to heart.

"I think, after all," she said meditatively, "I'll buy a hen and
keep chickens."

"What are you going to buy with your money, Shirley lamb?" asked
Rosemary, as Sarah fell to planning a chicken yard.

"A doll I guess," said Shirley who had had three that morning.

When Sarah reminded her of that fact, Aunt Trudy protested.

"No one is to attempt to dictate in any way," she said with
unaccustomed firmness. "When I was a child I was never allowed to
spend a cent as I wanted to and I gave you each this money to do
with exactly as you please. If you spend it foolishly, all right, I
don't care. But I want each one of you to get what you want,
whether or not it pleases some one else. I could have bought you
what I thought you ought to have, but that's the kind of presents I
had as a child and the only kind. And my goodness, didn't I hate
'em!"

The girls stared a little at this outburst and then the doctor
laughed.

"Well all I can say," he remarked drolly as he pushed back his chair
in answer