k Harding had guessed off Uncle Joseph's character pretty shrewdly.
The latter's pride had been touched at the idea of his brother's child
working out.

"I am sorry," he wrote, "you had so little confidence in me that you
would not write me of your difficulties! I was inexpressibly shocked to
learn that your mother suffered want. I supposed her family would look
out for you both--she had two brothers living the last I knew. At the
time of your father's death I was extremely hard up myself and thought
they were better able to care for her than I was."

"They were both killed during the war," Alice stopped reading the letter
to explain.

"I am sending you money for clothes and railroad fare, and I trust you
will let the past be bygones and come at once to make your home with us.
You shall go to school till you are thirty if you want to. Tell Chicken
Little Katy was right. I am stuck up--too stuck up to want my only niece
to suffer. Tell her, too, I owe her a debt of gratitude for her frank
letter that I shall try to pay at some future time."

"But Chicken Little Jane, how did you know where to send the letter, and
what made you think of writing to Mr. Fletcher in the first place?"
demanded Mrs. Morton, puzzled.

"Why Dick Harding said----" Chicken Little got no further.

"Dick Harding!" interrupted Dr. Morton. "Oh, I see," and throwing back
his head, he laughed uproariously.

CHAPTER VIII

CHRISTMAS AND THE DAY AFTER

Chicken Little's silver-spangled tarlatan skirts stood out crisp and
glittering. Her straight brown hair had been coaxed by dint of two rows
of curl papers to hang in shining brown curls. A silver paper star shone
above her forehead and slippers covered with more silver paper made her
feet things of beauty even in Katy's skeptical eyes.

She and Gertie fluttered in among eighteen other pink and white fairies
in the improvised dressing-room at the front of the church.

A huge Christmas tree occupied the spot where the pulpit and the
minister's chair usually held sway. The tree was likewise adorned with
silver paper and tinsel, and pink and white tarlatan in the shape of
plump stockings filled with candy and nuts. Each of the little girls was
to have one of these, and each boy a candy cane. These also hung in red
and white striped splendor on the tree.

The children sniffed the fragrance of the evergreen and eyed the candy
longingly. The distribution of presents was not to come off until