Part 6

Her Aunt Dora smiled. "What did I tell you, Heath? Well, dear, I think that will be a very good plan, and I am sure that we can find some very pretty little gifts to-morrow, perhaps for even less than twenty-five cents. Now, I tell you what I should do: I should spend the most, as you ought to do, upon your father and mother, and then get Bubbles her doll. After that we can spend the rest of the money upon the remaining persons."

This suited Eleanor exactly, and she said so. But just at this moment came a ring at the door and a telegram was handed to Mr. Dallas. He read it and looked up brightly at Eleanor. "Bubbles is found," he said; "she is at the hospital from which I have just received this telegram. I left word at each one of them that I was to be informed if a child of her description should come in. It seems she is not in a very bad state, but has a broken arm."

"Oh," Eleanor clasped her hands, "dear Uncle Heath, can we go get her right away?"

"Why, no, I'm afraid not."

Eleanor looked disappointed. "Why not?"

"First, because it is after visiting hours, and second, because a little girl with the whooping-cough would hardly be admitted into the ward of a hospital."

"Oh, I forgot that."

"She will be well taken care of, dear," said Aunt Dora. "I am very glad she is in so safe a place. To-morrow, before we do any of our shopping, we will stop at the hospital and learn how she is. It is much better to allow her to remain there till she is able to be moved safely, than to try to take her away now. You know we cannot tell yet just how she may be."

Eleanor agreed that it was best to wait. "But I hope she will be well by Christmas," she said.

As it proved, Bubbles was not in so desperately bad a condition. She had, indeed, been with the gipsies, some of whom she met as she was trudging along toward Sylvy's, after having missed seeing Mr. Snyder. The bright wagons and gay dresses attracted her and she lingered by the way to watch this troupe of wandering people. One of the men was training a restive young horse which came dashing down the road, and as Bubbles tried to get out of the way, she was struck by another horse which had become excited and had broken loose. A broken arm and some bruises were the result for Bubbles. It was at first feared that she might be injured internally, but after a week's nursing, it was found that she was not, and a portion of the encampment having been started on ahead, Bubbles was sent with them that she might sooner reach the city and be placed in a hospital where she could receive attention and communicate with her friends. She had sent word by one of the gipsy boys to Sylvy of her whereabouts but the message failed of delivery.

The two little girls waiting outside in the carriage while Mrs. Dallas made her call, greeted her eagerly, when she came out, and listened with the greatest interest to the report, asking all manner of questions. "Wasn't she glad to see you? Is she very sick? What is the matter besides the broken arm? Did the gipsies take her there? How long has she got to stay?" The questions came tumbling over one another till Mrs. Dallas declared she did not know which to answer.

"One at a time," she said laughing. "She was perfectly delighted to see me, poor little soul; she looks quite weak and miserable but she will have every care. I saw the head nurse, and she told me that Bubbles is in no danger. She has a broken arm and had a big lump on her head which made her delirious for several days. The gipsies were very kind to her and took her to the hospital. She will probably be out in a couple of weeks."

"By Christmas?" Eleanor asked.

"Yes, I hope so, at least, if she improves as they think she will. She sent her love to you and Florence, and she said that one of the gipsy children had stolen her doll, so we shall get her one to-day, instead of waiting to give it to her at Christmas. I think she would rather have that than anything else. She is perfectly content, now that she knows we are near her, and that she is to come to our house as soon as she is able. I promised that I would go to see her as often as I could."

Eleanor gave a deep sigh. "I'm so thankful," she said. "Poor little Bubbles." The child was not looking very bright, and Mrs. Dallas concluded that the shopping expedition should be very short that day.

They did their shopping in rather a funny way, for Aunt Dora thought it was not best for them to go into the shops themselves, and so, she selected the articles and brought them out to the carriage that Eleanor might approve them before they were sent home. Of course in every case she was entirely satisfied, and when they came to Florence's present that young person turned her head and shut her eyes tight that she might not get even a glimpse of the game that Aunt Dora had selected. But when it came to the present for Aunt Dora here was a quandary, till Aunt Dora suggested that they should stop before the shop where the purchase was to be made and she would send a salesman out to wait upon them while she went on to another shop where they could call for her. This plan worked very well and a pretty little candlestick for her writing desk was carefully placed among the packages in the small basket which was provided for the articles which they were to take home themselves.

The first purchase was the doll for Bubbles, and Florence suggested that it should be as much like Eleanor as possible, therefore, a fair creature with light flowing locks and blue eyes was chosen.

For her father, "a book which will make him laugh," Eleanor decided upon. "And for my blessed mamma something very lovely," and after looking at many things, a very dainty, fluffy tie was chosen because Aunt Dora said it would be easy to send it by mail. The rest of the purchases were put off till another time, and the next morning after the doll had been left at the hospital for Bubbles they continued their shopping, getting a game for Rock, a cup and saucer for Uncle Heath, a bright necktie for Sylvy, a pretty booklet for Miss Reese, and a comical little match-safe for Mrs. Snyder, "so she will think of me every time she lights her lamp," Eleanor said. After this, the Murdoch family had to be disposed of, and this took the rest of the morning, so that Eleanor returned home with an empty purse but with a well satisfied feeling at having provided for every one.

The next day was to be spent with Florence, and when Eleanor put her head on her pillow that night, although she was a very tired little girl she had before her a pleasant anticipation and no regrets. Her last thought before going to sleep was, "I am glad I got something for Cousin Ellen and the children," and she fell asleep at peace with the whole world.

When she awoke the next morning the ground was covered with snow and her aunt met her with: "I wonder if it is prudent to send the whooping-cough out of doors to-day. A fresh snow is liable to give fresh cold. Shall you be much disappointed, Dimple, if I ask you to stay at home to-day?"

"I did want to go so much," she said wistfully.

"I know you did, but although it is not very far to Florence's house, the cars will not take you there, and even if they did, I should not want you to go that way. You would best stay at home, I think, and we can make a new dress and a hat for Bubbles' doll."

At this Eleanor's face brightened and when Uncle Heath volunteered to stop at Mr. Graham's and ask if Florence could come and spend the day with Eleanor, if an opportunity occurred to send her around, Eleanor was quite satisfied. "I am glad Aunt Nellie has a carriage," she said, "for Florence will be so much more likely to come. I think it was very nice for Aunt Nell to let us go shopping in the carriage, for I couldn't have gone at all any other way."

About noon the jingle of sleigh-bells announced the approach of a sleigh, and looking out of the window there Eleanor saw Florence and her eldest sister. Florence was seen to hop out and then the sleigh drove off. Eleanor ran down into the hall to greet her cousin. "Hurry, Florence," she said. "I am so glad you came. We are dressing Bubbles' doll, at least, we are making a new dress for her, and a hat and coat. Come right upstairs."

"I can stay till three o'clock," Florence told her, "and then mamma will stop for me, and she wants you to go for a little ride in the sleigh. Should you like to?"

"Of course," Eleanor answered. "I was just wishing that I could go when I heard your bells jingling. Dr. Sullivan sometimes takes me with him at home, but not very often."

"We don't often have sleighing," returned Florence. "At least, not to last very long. I am glad we have some while you are here. Oh, Dimple, there are so many mysteries at home; I can hardly wait till Christmas. We are going to have a tree. Are you?"

"Yes, Aunt Dora says she is glad to have the excuse to have one; it seems so much more Christmassy."

They spent the next hour or two in helping to make the doll clothes, or, at least, they thought they were helping, though it must be confessed that Aunt Dora did most of the work. At three o'clock the sleigh came jingling up, and they had a fine drive out through the park and Eleanor came home with more color in her cheeks than they had worn for some weeks.

_CHAPTER IX_

_At Christmas_

The next day Eleanor was able to go over to her Aunt Nellie's, for the sun was shining brightly, and the pavements were cleared of snow. Florence and her other cousins greeted her warmly. They were all much excited over the approach of Christmas, and Eleanor was piloted up to the nursery, "Because," said Florence, "there is so much going on downstairs, and some of sister's friends will be down in our room. Mamma has gone out, but she will be back directly." And they proceeded to establish themselves and set to work industriously to finish some embroidery which each had to have ready for Christmas. They had hardly begun to work, however, when Mrs. Graham appeared, and Eleanor scurried her bit of linen out of sight, but Florence arose to the occasion with: "Mamma, Dimple and I have been talking about the Christmas party that we always have. We were wondering how we could manage it this year when we all have the whooping-cough. We have a lovely plan, though."

"Have you?" said her mother, sitting down and drawing off her gloves. "Let us hear it."

"Why," answered Florence, looking very wise as she threaded her needle, "we think it would be nice to have a whooping party."

Her mother laughed. "That's a queer sort of party. Do you mean to play Indian?"

"No, I mean we can have all the little girls and boys that are having the whooping-cough and that can't go to school or anywhere."

"And how many do you suppose that will be?"

"I don't know. I know four or five. May we have it, mamma?"

"Why, I don't know. I shall have to think about it. I suppose I should have to furnish lozenges and cough syrup for refreshments."

Florence laughed; it struck her as a very funny sort of refreshment, but she knew her mother was joking, although she added quite seriously, "We should have to be careful not to have anything very rich, you know. I think, after all, you'd best think of something else, for, a room full of children whooping and choking one after another, would be rather an unpleasant scene. Don't you think something else would be more amusing? You and Dimple put your thinking-caps on and we'll see what can be done to amuse you during the holidays."

Florence agreed to this and the two little girls proceeded with their work while they tried to think very hard, looking very sober as they stitched away. They were interrupted by the entrance of Florence's little sister Gertrude, who had been down town with her mother and who came in full of importance at having had presents provided for her to bestow at Christmas. "I've got sumpsin for ev'ybody," she said, "but I'm not going to tell."

Florence hugged her up close to her. "Won't you tell me?" she asked coaxingly.

"No," Gertrude shook her head, "I tan't tell."

"What color is the one you have for me?" Florence asked.

"It's white, an' it sumpsin to wipe your nose on. Now, I won't tell you one sing more," and she pursed up her lips tight, looking very wise while the others laughed heartily but pretended to be much mystified. These were very mysterious times, anyhow. Some one was always skurrying something under a chair or poking something into a closet whenever certain persons entered the room, and there were unfamiliar snippings of lace and silk and cambric to be seen on the floor in the nursery, so that Florence was wrought up to a pitch of curiosity rather unusual for her.

"You are to come over here right after breakfast, Christmas morning," she told Eleanor; "you and Rock. I wish you could stay here all night so that we could hang up our stockings together. I do so wish you could."

Eleanor looked a little doubtful; she did not want to neglect her Aunt Dora and her Uncle Heath, not to mention Rock. "I am afraid I couldn't do that," she said. "You know Rock will be at home and it would seem mean to leave them all on Christmas morning."

"Rock could come too; it would be such fun to have you," continued Florence, all hospitality, but Eleanor declared that would never do, and so they had to give up the plan. But, after all, it did turn out that Eleanor spent Christmas eve with her cousins, for Florence's mother decided that the children should have their Christmas tree at that time, that they might all go to Mrs. Heath Dallas' on Christmas night and see the tree that was to be prepared for Rock and Eleanor.

"Aunt Dora won't tell me anything about the tree," Eleanor told Florence, "so there's some sort of surprise, I know. Isn't it just fine that we can all be here together? I should have been so miserable at home."

"I don't see how you could have stood Cousin Ellen and have been nice to her," said Florence.

Eleanor was silent for a moment and took several stitches in the doily she was embroidering in outline stitch for her Aunt Nellie. "Well, I wasn't very nice to her," she admitted after a time. "I meant to be in the beginning, but when Don was so hateful and they treated Bubbles so mean, I just didn't care and I said anything that came into my head. Sometimes, when I got real mad, I was the sauciest girl you ever heard."

"Are you going to tell your mother?" Florence asked solemnly.

"I--I don't know. Maybe. Yes, I always tell mamma everything; somehow, it comes out whether I want it to or not. Yes, I'll tell her, but I couldn't be meek and lowly; I just couldn't. I never knew I could feel so very, very mad at any one before, but, you see, now that I am not there, I don't feel so mad, and I'm going to send the Christmas gifts, you know. I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll write to Cousin Ellen, and tell her I am sorry I was saucy, but I'll not say I am sorry about Donald, for I'm not." And Florence agreed that she could hardly be expected to.

The letter was written that very day and was tucked in the box with the Christmas gifts. It ran:

"DEAR COUSIN ELLEN:

"I hope you will have a happy Christmas. I am having a lovely time, and Bubbles is getting along finely. Every one at the hospital likes her and she is just as nice as she was when mamma was at home. I thought you would be glad to know that she is not so much hurt as we were afraid of because you sent her away and you would feel very bad if you thought you had made her get hurt very bad. I send you all a little Christmas gift. I hope you will like what I send. Were you ever impudent when you were a little girl? I am sorry I was.

"Yours "ELEANOR DALLAS."

Eleanor submitted the letter to her Aunt Nellie who read it and laughing, said: "You have said just the right thing, Dimple, and if Cousin Ellen can remember as far back as a certain occasion when she was a little girl I think she could answer, 'yes,' to your last question."

"Was she a nice little girl? Did you know her then, Aunt Nellie?"

"Yes, I knew her very well. She was my cousin, you know, but I don't believe your mother and I were as fond of her as you are of Florence. She hasn't changed so very much, I fancy."

"Then she couldn't have been so very nice," Eleanor concluded.

It was the day upon which they expected Rock to return home, and Eleanor was in a high state of excitement. There must be other arrivals to be looked for, too, for Aunt Dora was having the largest guest room made ready and one or two telegrams had arrived. "Are you expecting somebody else?" she ventured to ask.

"Yes," Aunt Dora answered smiling.

Eleanor's wistful eyes asked the question before her lips said, "Not papa and mamma?"

Aunt Dora stooped and kissed her. "No, dear, I wish I could say it was they for whom I am looking, but I'll tell you this much: they are strangers to me."

Eleanor puzzled over this. It seemed funny for Aunt Dora to entertain strangers at Christmas time, and she was rather disappointed that it should be so; it seemed as if it made a more formal day of it than she could enjoy. She determined to ask Rock about it so soon as she should have a chance, but he knew no more about it than she did and could not coax the secret from his mother. Rock had grown, Eleanor discovered, and although he was quite a rough and tumble boy, liking to be out of doors and to play all sorts of games requiring muscle, he was as kind and polite and gentle when he was in the house, as he ever had been, and Eleanor did not feel that her old comrade had lost anything by going to boarding-school. He was about a year older than Eleanor and she had known him when his mother was a widow and before she had married Eleanor's Uncle Heath.

"It's too bad that you can't go down town with me to buy my presents," Rock said to her the day he arrived. "But, I say, Dimple it's jolly to have you here. I was so glad when I heard you were coming."

"You weren't as glad as I was," she returned. "And isn't it fine that you don't have to go back to that hateful school?"

Rock looked sober. "Yes, it is," he replied. "Some of the fellows, who have been to other schools say they aren't half bad, but you see, this one has all new teachers this year, and though it used to be fine a few years ago, it's not so any more. You see father thought it was the same or he wouldn't have sent me there." One thing that Eleanor liked about Rock was his loyalty to her Uncle Heath.

The days passed quickly enough and when Christmas eve came around Eleanor, Rock, Mr. and Mrs. Heath Dallas were to see the tree at Aunt Nellie's. A fine affair it was, and it made a great show in the dining-room where it stood. Florence had several brothers and sisters and it seemed a big family to Eleanor, for, first, there was Kitty, the eldest daughter who was sixteen, and then came Marian, and next Florence, who was not quite ten, and then the three younger children, Lee and Gertrude, and Ted, the baby. This youngest member of the family was not old enough to do much more than laugh and coo at the shining tree, but Lee and Gertrude were just of the age to most appreciate the glittering glories of stars and rings and balls and glistening baubles.

The presents were not to be given till the next morning, although little Gertrude insisted upon making every one guess what she had for him or her, and in most cases managed to convey the information as to what it was. And then, because Rock said he was not going to hang up his stocking because he was too big to do such babyish things, his mother yielded to Florence's pleading for Eleanor's company for over night, promising that she should not even be asked to stay to breakfast if she could but be on hand to hang up her stocking with the rest.

"Don't you dare to stay too long," said Rock. "We're going to have our presents right after breakfast, aren't you, mamma?"

Mrs. Dallas looked at her husband. "Unless you and Eleanor can wait till evening when we have the tree."

"Oh, pshaw! that's too long to wait," Rock declared. Then seeing his mother's expression, he asked, "Is there any particular reason for it, mother?"

"Yes, I must confess, there is."

"Then I'll wait, if Dimple will, but it's a good deal to ask of a fellow."

"I'll wait," said Dimple cheerfully.

"Then I'll come over for you some time after breakfast," Rock told her, "and I'll see the presents over here and have the fun of that."

"I think Rock was just dear to do that," said Florence after he had gone. "I did so want you to stay with me to-night. Come, let's go right to bed, Dimple."

"We want to hang up our stockings first."

"Oh, of course. Mamma has some white ones, real big long ones, that she keeps on purpose. You know every one of the family has a stocking on Christmas morning."

"I am always going to hang up mine," Eleanor declared; "even after I am grown up and am married. I hope we shall live near each other then, don't you?"

Florence replied that she did and they hurried off to bed after seeing the stockings securely hung up by the nursery chimney-piece.