toba. If I could only send
her something! She must be so lonely out there. And Aunt Emmy herself,
of course; and poor old Aunt Kitty down the lane; and Aunt Mary and,
yes--Florence too, although she did treat me so meanly. I shall never
feel the same to her again. But she gave me a present last Christmas,
and so out of mere politeness I ought to give her something."

Clorinda stopped short suddenly. She had just remembered that she
would not have liked to say that last sentence to Aunt Emmy.
Therefore, there was something wrong about it. Clorinda had long ago
learned that there was sure to be something wrong in anything that
could not be said to Aunt Emmy. So she stopped to think it over.

Clorinda puzzled over Aunt Emmy's meaning for four days and part of
three nights. Then all at once it came to her. Or if it wasn't Aunt
Emmy's meaning it was a very good meaning in itself, and it grew
clearer and expanded in meaning during the days that followed,
although at first Clorinda shrank a little from some of the
conclusions to which it led her.

"I've solved the problem of my Christmas giving for this year," she
told Aunt Emmy. "I have some things to give after all. Some of them
quite costly, too; that is, they will cost me something, but I know
I'll be better off and richer after I've paid the price. That is what
Mr. Grierson would call a paradox, isn't it? I'll explain all about it
to you on Christmas Day."

On Christmas Day, Clorinda went over to Aunt Emmy's. It was a faded
brown Christmas after all, for the snow had not come. But Clorinda
did not mind; there was such joy in her heart that she thought it the
most delightful Christmas Day that ever dawned.

She put the queer cornery armful she carried down on the kitchen floor
before she went into the sitting room. Aunt Emmy was lying on the sofa
before the fire, and Clorinda sat down beside her.

"I've come to tell you all about it," she said.

Aunt Emmy patted the hand that was in her own.

"From your face, dear girl, it will be pleasant hearing and telling,"
she said.

Clorinda nodded.

"Aunt Emmy, I thought for days over your meaning ... thought until I
was dizzy. And then one evening it just came to me, without any
thinking at all, and I knew that I could give some gifts after all. I
thought of something new every day for a week. At first I didn't think
I _could_ give some of them, and then I thought how selfish I was. I
would have been willing to pay any