re as long as you want," Robin finally declared,
popping a round bon-bon between the child's trembling lips. "We needed a
little girl to sit at the foot of that tree, didn't we?"

At Robin's command, Harkness played the role of Santa. The girls had
fashioned all sorts of nonsensical gifts out of paper and cardboard and
paste; no one was forgotten. Mrs. Lynch declared herself "as rich as
rich" with bracelets and a necklace made of red berries. Mrs. Budge,
forgetting, when Robin held a sprig of mistletoe over her head and
daringly kissed her wrinkled cheek, that "things was going to sixes and
sevens," laughed until her sides ached at Harkness in his silly clown's
cap. Robin and Beryl, with much solemnity, exchanged purchases each had
secretly made at the village store and Robin could not resist adding:
"Dare you to send it to me next Christmas."

Beryl had to admit, deep in her heart, that Robin had managed a
Christmas full of joy that had nothing to do with stores full of lovely
things and crowded with people lucky enough to have money to buy them.
Never having thought much about the Christmas spirit, she had no name
with which to explain Mrs. Budge's awkwardly kind manner--even to her,
or her mother's unusual animation, or why the picture of little Susy,
still rooted to the tree, clasping a great paper doll in her arms, made
her glad all over. But after a little she disappeared, and presently,
from the library, came the strains of her violin, low, pulsing with a
deep emotion, now a laugh, now a sob, climbing higher and higher until
they sang like the far-off, quivery note of a bird, flying into the
heavens.

A deep hush fell over the little group of merrymakers. Harkness coughed
into his hand. Mrs. Budge fussed around the spacious belt of a dress for
a handkerchief and, finding none, surreptitiously lifted a corner of her
apron. Mrs. Lynch caught her throat with a convulsive movement as though
something hurt it. Robin, watching her, slipped her hand into the
mother's and squeezed it.

"Don't go," she whispered when the music suddenly ceased. "Beryl's
funny. She likes to be alone when she plays."

"I never heard her play--like _that_!"

"Oh, Beryl's wonderful!" Robin smiled happily in her faith. "She makes
that all up, too, 'cause she hasn't any music. She's going to be the
greatest violinist in the world. Hush!"

Beryl had begun a lilting refrain, as though a mother laughed as she
sang a lullaby. It had in it a