you needn't say
a word about it. I'm going to have a Christmas dinner, and I'm going to
invite every blessed soul in this house to come. They shall be warm
and full for once in their lives, please God! And, Katey," she went on
breathlessly, before the old man had sufficiently recovered from his
astonishment to speak, "go right upstairs now, and invite every one of
'em from the fathers down to Mrs. Parker's baby to come to dinner at
three o'clock; we'll have to keep fashionable hours, it's so late now;
and mind, Katey, not a word about the money. And hurry back, child, I
want you to help me."

To her surprise, the opposition from her husband was less than she
expected. The genial tobacco seemed to have quieted his nerves, and even
opened his heart. Grateful for this, Ann resolved that his pipe should
never lack tobacco while she could work.

But now the cares of dinner absorbed her. The meat and vegetables were
prepared, the pudding made, and the long table spread, though she had
to borrow every table in the house, and every dish to have enough to go
around.

At three o'clock when the guests came in, it was really a very pleasant
sight. The bright warm fire, the long table, covered with a substantial,
and, to them, a luxurious meal, all smoking hot. John, in his neatly
brushed suit, in an armchair at the foot of the table, Ann in a bustle
of hurry and welcome, and a plate and a seat for every one.

How the half-starved creatures enjoyed it; how the children stuffed and
the parents looked on with a happiness that was very near to tears; how
old John actually smiled and urged them to send back their plates again
and again, and how Ann, the washerwoman, was the life and soul of it
all, I can't half tell.

After dinner, when the poor women lodgers insisted on clearing up, and
the poor men sat down by the fire to smoke, for old John actually passed
around his beloved tobacco, Ann quietly slipped out for a few minutes,
took four large bundles from a closet under the stairs, and disappeared
upstairs. She was scarcely missed before she was back again.

Well, of course it was a great day in the house on the alley, and the
guests sat long into the twilight before the warm fire, talking of their
old homes in the fatherland, the hard winter, and prospects for work in
the spring.

When at last they returned to the chilly discomfort of their own rooms,
each family found a package containing a new warm dress and pair of
shoes