in the sturdy
arms of Molly to look over.

David, meanwhile, overcome by the toothsomeness of beefsteak, falls to
again, while the others dance a sort of fandango, and turn up the rag
carpet, and rattle the dishes on the dresser, and lift Dolly high in the
air to the improvised tune of "Tom's coming home! Tom's coming home!
Tom's coming home to-morrow!"

"It's another mouth to feed, but it's hard to wish the poor boy back to
Californy again," huskily said David; then he exclaimed, as the noise
increased, "Hey dey! Why, you'll spill the coffee next, and cave in the
walls, too, in a minute, and then there'll be no home for Tom to come
to!"

This was good humoredly added as the final swing was given to the dance,
which brought the twins holding Dolly aloft in their arms laughing and
panting on the settee.

"But tell us, father, is he coming home for good? He don't say so in the
letter," asked Dolly, and all leaned forward to hear his answer.

"Coming home for good?" mused David. "Yes, he's coming home for good, I
hope; but I'm fearful he'll find little beside the good in his sisters'
hearts."

"Poor Tom," said Dolly, with far-away eyes, "he's had a weary life of it
in the mines, I guess, poor fellow."

"Yes, yes," said David, "and that's what makes it harder that we can't
greet him with a good Christmas to-morrow. Well, well, it'll be a
delight to see my poor boy again, hard times or no hard times, and we'll
be as cheerful as we can be and are now, thanks to my good girls," and
here he arose from the table, and, seating himself at the fire, opened a
morning paper that he had found in the waste-basket in Mr. Griffin's
counting-house (and very worthless it must have been to be found there!)
in which, through the kind offices of a massive old pair of spectacles,
he was soon absorbed.

And now, while the Little Scout--in fulfilment of her established
character--plays the spy on sundry crumbs that slink from notice under
the table, and while the twins, too busy to talk, wash the dishes and
dispose them in a glistening row along the dresser, and, while David
opens the paper and plods up and down it, column by column, like a
ploughman furrow by furrow up and down a field, and with almost as much
toil; and while the ancient clock on the shelf over the stove and under
the motley General Washington ticks loud enough to be heard above the
clinking dishes and simmering kettle; and while the table, divested of
its cloth and