t." He couldn't resist a slight masculine touch of severity at her
incapacity. "I wish you'd tend to these things at the time, Clytie, or
let me know about them." He took the money when George returned. "Here's
your dollar now, Mary--don't lose it again!--and your five, George. You
might as well take another dollar yourself, Clytie, for extras."

He pocketed the remainder of the change carelessly. After his first pang
at the encroachment on the reserve fund the rod had sunk so far out of
sight that it was almost as if it had never been. He had, of course,
known all along that he would not buy it. Even the sting of the "Amount
due" quickly evaporated.

Little Mary gave a jump that bumped her brown curly head against him.

"You don't know what I'm going to give you for Christmas!" she cried
joyously.

II

Langshaw was one of those men who have an inherited capacity for
enjoying Christmas. He lent it his attention with zest, choosing the
turkey himself with critical care as he went through the big market in
town, from whence he brought also wreaths and branches of holly that
seemed to have larger and redder berries than could be bought in the
village. On Christmas Eve he put up the greens that decorated the
parlour and dining-room--a ceremony that required large preparations
with a step-ladder, a hammer, tacks, and string, the removal of his
coat, and a lighted pipe in one corner of his mouth; and which proceeded
with such painstaking slowness on account of his coming down from the
ladder every other moment to view the artistic effect of the
arrangements, that it was only by sticking the last branches up any old
way at Clytie's wild appeal that he ever got it finished at all.

Then he helped her fill the stockings, his own fingers carefully giving
the crowning effect of orange and cornucopia in each one, and arranging
the large packages below, after tiptoeing down the stairs with them so
as not to wake the officially sleeping children, who were patently stark
awake, thrashing or coughing in their little beds. The sturdy George had
never been known to sleep on Christmas Eve, always coming down the next
day esthetically pale and with abnormally large eyes, to the feast of
rapture.

On this Saturday--Christmas Eve's eve--when Langshaw finally reached
home, laden with all the "last things" and the impossible packages of
tortuous shapes left by fond relatives at his office for the
children--one pocket of his ove