even that was all arranged for,
although the turkey hadn't come and her husband was going to stop and
see about it on his way home. She shuddered as the possibility of its
having gone to the Biltons occurred to her. But she didn't believe it
had,--they hadn't the same butcher any longer. Meanwhile there was so
little to do. It was too dark to read or sew, and she sat idly at the
window looking out at the passers and the driving snow. Everybody else
was in a hurry. She wished she, too, had occasion to hasten down for a
last purchase, or to light the lamp in order to finish a last bit of
dainty sewing, as she used to do when she was a girl. She seemed to have
so few friends now with whom she exchanged Christmas greetings. Was it
then only for children and youth, this Christmas cheer? And must she
necessarily have left it behind her with her girlhood? No, she knew
better than that. She felt that there was a deeper significance in the
Christmas-tide than can come home to the hearts of children and
unthoughtfulness, and yet it had grown to be so painfully like other
days,--an occasion for a little bigger dinner, that was about all. With
an unconscious sigh she looked across to the Bilton house. Plenty of
people over there to make merry. Five stockings to hang up. She wished
she might have sent something in. To be sure, there was the dog, but
that was some time ago. Very likely the dog would have been dead now,
anyhow. She felt, herself, that this logic was not irrefutable, but she
wished she could have sent some paper parcels just the same. So strong
had this impulse been that she had said to her husband somewhat timidly
that morning,--

"There are a good many of those Bilton children to get presents for."

"More fools they that get 'em presents, then," he had pleasantly
replied.

"I don't suppose he has much to buy them with," she continued.

"He had enough to buy poison for my dog," exclaimed her husband, giving
his newspaper an angry shake.

"I'd almost like to send them in some cheap little toys."

"Well, as long as you don't quite like to, it won't do any harm," he
said with some violence, laying down his newspaper, and looking at her
in a manner not to be misunderstood. "But you see that the liking
doesn't get any farther."

"It's Christmas, you know," said his plucky wife.

"Oh, no, I don't know it!" he replied gruffly. "I haven't fallen over
forty children a minute in the street with their ridiculous parcel