ild rush of feet in the hallway overhead, and a shower of
light parcels filled the air, pelting the sober figures from right and
left, as a chorus of merry voices screamed joyously, "Merry, merry
Christmas!"

"You thought we had gone home, didn't you?"

"But we haven't and we aren't going to! Miss Pomeroy said we might
stay."

"And the other girls left those packages for jokes. The real presents
are all in the principal's office."

"Oh, girls!" gasped Tabitha, with eyes shining like diamonds.

"Oh, girls!" echoed Bertha, her face wreathed in her own sunny smile
again.

CHAPTER XVIII

TABITHA'S CHRISTMAS

Christmas Day dawned bright and clear and with the first peep of dawn
Tabitha was out of bed, shaking Chrystobel vigorously and calling,
"Merry Christmas, lazybones! Wake up; it's day! The rising bell has
rung. Didn't you hear it?"

"Oh, you are dreaming," drowsily murmured the weary girl in the other
bed. "This is vacation time."

"But we have to get up just the same," laughed Tabitha. "I am going to
wake Carrie and the others."

She bounced across the room, flung open the door and stopped abruptly,
for suspended to the transom above her head hung two immense tarlatan
stockings, stuffed to the very brim with bundles of all sorts and sizes.
Across the hall from Carrie's transom swung two more similar socks, and
dangling against Bertha's door was a third set.

Tabitha's wild shriek of surprise and delight brought the other five
girls standing in their beds, and Carrie chattered anxiously, "Oh, what
is the matter? Is the building on fire?"

"No, indeed. Merry Christmas!" shouted the black-eyed girl, tugging at
the stocking marked with her name. "Open the door and see what you find.
Santa Claus surely has been here while we slept."

There was the sound of pattering feet in the three rooms, and
Chrystobel, now thoroughly awake, reached Tabitha's side just as the
door across the hall and the one next to theirs burst open and four
excited girls tumbled out. "Oh-h-h!" came a chorus of long-drawn-out,
rapturous sighs, as five pair of eager arms clasped the bulky socks and
jerked them loose.

"Ow!" shrieked Grace. "There is something awfully hard in mine. It
nearly knocked a hole in my head. It's a handkerchief box, as sure as I
am alive! Isn't it a dear? That is from Esther. Well, Kitty, what are
you doing down there?"

Tabitha, in nightgown and slippers, sat in the middle of the floor, her
huge s