And what fun the Corner House girls had doing that shopping! Tess and
Dot did their part, and that the entire five and ten cent store was not
bought out was not _their_ fault.

"You can get such a lot for your money in that store," Dot gravely
announced, "that a dollar seems twice as big as it does anywhere else."

"But I don't want the other girls to think we are just 'ten-centers,'"
Agnes said. "Trix Severn says she wouldn't be seen going into such a
cheap place."

"What do you care what people call you?" asked Ruth. "If you had been
born in Indiana they'd have called you a 'Hoosier'; and if in North
Carolina, they'd call you a 'Tar Heel.'"

"Or, if you were from Michigan, they'd say you were a 'Michigander,'"
chuckled Neale, who was with them. "In _your_ case, Aggie, it would be
'Michigoose.'"

"Is that so?" demanded Agnes, to whom Neale had once confessed that he
was born in the state of Maine. "Then I suppose we ought to call _you_ a
'Maniac,' eh?"

"Hit! a palpable hit!" agreed Neale, good-naturedly. "Come on! let's
have some of your bundles. For goodness' sake! why didn't you girls
bring a bushel basket--or engage a pack-mule?"

"We seem to have secured a very good substitute for the latter," said
Ruth, demurely.

All this shopping was done early in Christmas week, for the Corner House
girls determined to allow nothing to break into their own home Christmas
Eve celebration. The tree in Tess' room at school was going to be
lighted up on Thursday afternoon; but Wednesday the Kenway girls were
all excused from school early and Neale drove them over to Meadow Street
in a hired sleigh.

They stopped before the doors of the respective shops of Mrs. Kranz and
Joe Maroni. Joe's stand was strung with gay paper flowers and greens. He
had a small forest of Christmas trees he was selling, just at the
corner.

"Good-a day! good-a day, leetla padrona!" was his welcome for Ruth, and
he bowed very low before the oldest Kenway girl, whom he insisted upon
considering the real mistress of the house in which he and his family
lived.

The little remembrances the girls had brought for Joe's family--down to
a rattle for the baby--delighted the Italian. Tess had hung a special
present for Maria on the school tree; but that was a secret as yet.

They carried all the presents into Mrs. Kranz's parlor and then Neale
drove away, leaving the four Corner House girls to play their parts of
_Lady Bountiful_ without his aid.

T