of stormy, mile-wide privacy, her mother's old-fashioned long
black skirt drawn up from her dainty toes (of which, of course, the
imminent John Fairmeadow was never permitted to be aware), when, all at
once, and clamouring above the old wind's howling, there was a
tremendous knocking at the door--a knocking so loud, and commanding, and
prolonged, that Pattie Batch jumped like a fawn in alarm, and stood for
a moment with palpitating heart and a mighty inclination to fly to the
bedroom and lock herself in. Presently, however, she mustered courage to
call "Come in!" in a sufficient tone: whereupon, the door was
immediately flung wide, and big John Fairmeadow, with a wild, dusty
blast of the gale, strode in with a gigantic basket, and slammed the
door behind him, leaving the shivering, tenacious Shadow, which had
secretly followed from Swamp's End, to keep cold vigil outside.

"Hello, there, Pattie Batch!" John Fairmeadow roared. "Merry Christmas!"

Pattie Batch stared.

"Hello, I say!" John Fairmeadow cried, again. "Merry Christmas, ye
rascal!"

Pattie Batch, gulping her delight, and quite incapable of uttering a
word, because of it, flew to the kitchen, instead of to the bedroom, and
returned with a broom, with which, while the Shadow peeked in at the
window, she brushed, and scraped, and slapped John Fairmeadow so
vigorously that John Fairmeadow scampered into a corner and stood at
bay.

"Look out, there, Polly Pry!" he shouted, in a rage; "don't you _dare_
look at my basket."

Pattie Batch had been doing nothing of the sort.

"Don't you so much as _squint_ at my basket," John Fairmeadow growled.

Pattie Batch instantly _did_, of course--and with her eyes wide and
sparkling, too. It was really something more than a squint.

"Keep your eyes off that basket, Miss Pry!" John Fairmeadow commanded,
again. "Huh!" he complained, emerging from his refuge and throwing his
mackinaw and cap on the floor; "anybody'd think there was something in
that basket for _you_."

"There ith," Pattie Batch gasped, in ecstasy.

"Is!" John Fairmeadow scornfully mocked. "Huh!"

Pattie Batch caught John Fairmeadow by the two lapels of his coat--and
she stood on tiptoe--and she wouldn't let John Fairmeadow turn his head
away--(as if John Fairmeadow cared to evade those round, glowing
eyes!)--and she looked into his gray eyes with a bewitching
conglomeration of hope, amusement, curiosity and adoring childish
affection. "There ith, too