Christmas without Jimmie was, for Robin, a thing not to think about. And from Beryl, inasmuch as that young lady affected a stoical indifference to the holiday, she could get little sympathy. Beryl had shocked her with the heresy: "Christmas is just for rich people, anyway."

"It is not. Oh, it isn't," Robin had cried in remonstrance. But she could not tell of her and Jimmie's happy Christ-days without giving way to the tears which, at the thought, scalded the backs of her eyes. It had not been alone the holly and pine of the shop windows, or the simple gifts Jimmie's loyal and more fortunate friends brought, or the usual merry feast that had made them happy; it had been a deep and beautiful understanding of the Infinite Love that had given the Christ-child to the world, that Love which surpassed even Jimmie's love for her or hers for Jimmie, and that was hers and everyone elses. She had felt it first when, a very little girl, she had gone, once, with Jimmie into the purple shadows of a great church, where the air was sweet with incense and vibrating with the muted notes of an organ. She had stood with Jimmie before a little cradle that had seemed beautiful with gold and precious colors but, when she looked again, was a humble thing of wood and straw, and what she had thought so bright was the radiance of candles and the reflection from the many-colored windows. Then she had looked at the cradle more closely and had found that it held a beautiful wax babe. When Jimmie tugged at her hand she had reluctantly turned away. At the same time a shabby old woman and a little boy, who had been kneeling nearby, arose, and the old woman and the little boy had smiled at her—a different smile and she had smiled back. On the way home Jimmie had explained to her that the Gift of the Christ-child was the great universal gift and belonged to everyone, the world over. She knew, then, why the shabby old woman had smiled—it was over the Gift they shared.

"Christmas is for everybody," she finished.

"Well, all it means to me now that I'm big," pursued Beryl, "is stores full of lovely things and crowded with people lucky enough to have money to buy them. And talking about how much everything is. I heard a woman once saying she had to spend five dollars on her aunt because her aunt always spent five dollars on her. That's why I say Christmas is for the rich—it's a sort of general exchange and take it back if you don't like it or have half a dozen like 'em, or put it away and send it to some one next Christmas. Miss Lewis, at the Settlement where mother worked, gave a book to a lady one Christmas and got it back the next, and the leaves weren't even cut."

Robin laughed in spite of her disapproval of Beryl's heresy. "There are different kinds of Christmases, Beryl, and I'll show you," she protested, then and there vowing to make the Christmas at the Manor a merry one, in spite of odds.

"Well, the nicest thing I know that's going to happen is that Rub-a-dub-dub is going home," retorted Beryl.

"That is nice, but there'll be even nicer things. Let's invite your mother and Dale for dinner and have a little tree and we'll make all sorts of foolish things to put on it."

To Beryl this did not sound at all exciting but Robin loved the thought of sitting with Mrs. Lynch and Dale and Beryl, like one happy family, around the long table. She'd ask Harkness to cut pine boughs and a nice smelly tree, which she and Beryl would adorn with gifts that had no more value than a good laugh.

And she would coax Harkness to get Williams and his nice wife to help open and clean the House of Laughter. She'd like to have it a Christmas gift from her to the Mill children.

She found Harkness ready for her wildest suggestion. He had confided to Williams and Mrs. Budge that he felt sorry for little Missy alone in the big house on Christmas.

"A lot of pine and holly, Missy, and the old place won't look the same. A tree—of course there'll be a tree! Whoever heard of Christmas without a tree. Many's the one I've cut with the young master; he'd have no one but Harkness do it, for he said I always found the best trees."

But the old man's head began to whirl a little when Robin explained about the House of Laughter and the dinner that must be "different." She had to tell him again and again, until her tone grew pleading.

"I'll help you, Missy, only I'm a little slow just understanding. It'll come, though, it'll come. Williams will give a hand and his wife maybe, and I'll tell Mrs. Budge about the Christmas cakes and things. It'll be as merry a Christmas as old Harkness can make it, Missy."

"Oh, Mr. Harkness, you're a dear," Robin cried, with a look that made the old man's heart almost burst with affection.

"But I won't tell Hannah Budge any more than she has to know," he thought, as he went off to do Robin's bidding.

With Williams and his wife and his wife's sister, who had married the telegraph operator at the little station, pressed into the work, the empty cottage at the turn of the road took on rapid changes. Windows were opened, doors were thrown wide, letting in the sweet cold air; under the magic of strong soap and good muscle the old wood-work shone with cleanliness; the faded walls lost their melancholy. Harkness and Williams hauled down a load of wood and piled it high by the back door; Mrs. Lynch transformed the rusty stove into a shiny, efficient, eager thing.

Williams, who was very clever and would have been a carpenter if he hadn't been a chauffeur, built tables out of rough boards and, in the living room, put up shelves for books and the window seat Robin wanted.

Robin and Beryl flew about in everyone's way, eager to help and generous with advice.

"There, I'd say things were pretty nice," exclaimed Williams, at the end of the sixth day of work, stepping back to survey with satisfaction the chair he had made out of "odds and ends."

"But it doesn't look like what we want—yet!" Robin glanced about dolefully. "It needs such a lot to make it homey. Where'll we ever get it all?"

"Now, Miss Robin, Rome wasn't built in a day, as I ever heard of," protested Harkness, a smudge over his nose and two long nails between his teeth. "I guess there's truck enough in the attic up there at the Manor to fill this house and a dozen like it."

"Oh, Mr. Harkness, may we use it? Or—just borrow it until my aunt returns? Can we?"

Harkness exchanged glances with Williams. Harkness knew that it had long been Mrs. Budge's custom to make a two day trip to New York during the week preceding Christmas. They could take advantage of her absence.

"Well, I guess we can borrow enough, Missy, to do." And no one thought of smiling at his "we" for, indeed, everyone there felt that he or she had a share in Robin's House of Laughter.

But even stripping the Manor attic of its "truck" did not satisfy Robin and the day before Christmas found her House of Laughter lacking in the things she wanted most.

"It ought to have jolly pictures and ever so many books and pillows and nice, frilly curtains," she mourned, wondering how much they would cost and how she could ever get them.

On Christmas morning, Harkness dragged to Robin's door a box of gifts from her guardian. Most of them Miss Effie had selected, as poor Cornelius Allendyce was still confined to his room, and that good-hearted woman had, with a burst of real Christmas spirit, simply duplicated each gift, for, though she wasn't at all sure, yet, that this "companion" of Robin's choosing was the refined sort Robin ought to have, nevertheless she was a girl like Robin and Christmas was Christmas. Beryl appreciated the thoughtfulness more than she could express and when she found a little book entitled "Old Violins" and only one, she hugged it to her with a rush of happy feeling.

Later in the morning Mrs. Granger's chauffeur arrived with a great box of bon-bons in queer shapes and colors. Neither Robin nor Beryl had ever seen anything quite so extravagantly contrived.

"She paid a fortune for that," declared Beryl, appraisingly. "She must have forgiven Susy for spoiling her dress. Or maybe she's thinking of her son again. Let me read the card. 'Hoping you will coax that nice Mr. Tubbs to bring you to us before my youngsters go back to school—' Didn't I tell you, Robin?"

"I won't go," Robin answered briefly, pushing box and card away with a gesture that disposed of Mrs. Granger and her son. "Now we must trim the tree."

Harkness, true to his boast, had found quite the straightest, princeliest balsam in the nearby woods. Its fragrance penetrated and filled the old house. The girls went about sniffing joyously, carrying in their arms all sorts of mysterious objects made of bright paper. Harkness, oddly dishevelled and excited, balanced on a stepladder and fastened the gay ornaments where Robin directed.

Beryl had laughed at the idea of having a Christmas tree without the usual tinsel and glittering baubles. But after Robin and Harkness had worked for a half-hour she admitted the effect was very Christmasy and "different."

"You're awfully clever, Robin," she declared, in a tone frankly grudging. "You make little things count for so much—like mother."

"I think that's a compliment. And speaking of your mother, Beryl Lynch, we have just time to wash our hands and faces and change our dresses before she comes. Oh, hasn't this day simply flown? And hasn't it been nice, after all? Isn't Harkness darling—look at him." For Harkness, his head on one side, a sprig of holly over one ear where Robin had put it, was surveying the effect of an angel which Robin had made of bright tissue paper and which he had carefully hung by the heels.

"That kite looks as real as can be, Missy."

Giggling, the girls rushed away to make ready for what Robin declared (though she had been much hurt by Dale's refusing to come) the nicest part of Christmas.

Belowstairs Mrs. Budge was directing Chloe with the last touches of the Christmas feast.

"That's the prettiest cake I ever saw if I do say so," she cried, patting the round cherry which adorned the centre of the gaily frosted cake. Then, lest she grow cheerful, she drew a long sigh from the depths of her bosom. "But, cake or no cake, I never thought I'd live to feed Mill persons, coming to our table like the best people. Things plain common. It ain't like the old days—it ain't."

"The old days are old days, Hannah Budge," rebuked Harkness, who had come into the kitchen. "Mebbe our little lydy's ways aren't our ways but it isn't so bad hearing the young voices and you'll admit, Mrs. Budge, that that's a fine cake and there'd be no cake if Missy wasn't here, now, won't you?"

"I haven't time for your philosophizing, Timothy Harkness. With things at sixes and sevens I have enough to do!" But Mrs. Budge's tone had softened. She had not made a Christmas cake (at sixteen Hannah Budge had taken the prize at the County Agricultural Exhibit for the finest decorated cake, and she had never forgotten it) since Master Christopher the Third had left them. And she had enjoyed hearing young voices and eager steps in the old house and had caught herself that very morning, as she helped Chloe stuff the turkey, singing:

"Oh, com-m-me let 'tus a-dor-r-re Him."

Chloe's last delectable dish for the dinner eaten, Harkness drew back the folding doors to reveal the Christmas tree in the conservatory. And Robin, waiting for Mrs. Lynch's "oh" of admiration, gave vent herself to a delighted cry of surprise for, at the foot of the tree, so still as to seem a graven image, sat little Susy, cross-legged, staring in wrapt contentment at the bright ornaments.

"Susy, you darling, where in the world did you drop from?" Robin rushed to her and knelt at her side.

Without moving her eyes so much as a fraction of an inch, Susy indicated the side door of the conservatory as her means of entrance. In one hand she clutched a soiled ragged picture book, on its uppermost page the colorful illustration of "The Night before Christmas." Susy had not forgotten the magic of that side door which had opened for her upon a feast beyond her wildest imaginings; if there were a place on earth where that Christmas tree of her picture could come really true it must be at the "big girl's." Alone she had bravely climbed the hill to the Manor to find out.

Not a word could Robin's questioning drag from her.

"You shall stay here 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 rÔle 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 familiar strain which carried little Mrs. Moira back to Beryl's baby days. Then the lullaby swung into the deeper tones of a Christmas anthem and again into a tempestuous outburst of melody, as though Beryl had let loose all at once the riotous feelings that surged within her.

Just as the last note died away a bell pealed through the house. Because it was still Christmas, really being only nine o'clock, everyone looked for a surprise. And a surprise it was, indeed, when Harkness placed an impressive envelope in Robin's hands and said that a stranger had brought it to the door.

"He looked like one of these motorcycle men, but before I could as much as say 'Good evening' he was off in the dark."

Robin studied the address, which was printed. It gave no clue whatsoever. Nor was there anything else on the envelope. She broke the sealed flap, with an excited giggle. Five crisp bank-notes fell out.

"For goodness' sake," cried Beryl, staring. "Who ever sent them?"

Beryl squealed with delight. "How larky to have her remember every solitary thing you told her, Robin—even what we called her house. What are you going to do with it all? I wish I could get money like that."

Robin stood staring at the letter—not at all jubilant over the unexpected gift. "I wish she hadn't said she didn't believe the experiment would work. It isn't an experiment and it will work. I'm not trying anything, am I?" appealing to Mrs. Lynch, who hastily assured her with a "No, dearie." Then Robin gathered up the bank-notes.

"Though I did wish we had more nice things for the house and now we can get them. But isn't this an awful lot of money?" For she had seen a one and two ciphers in a corner of one bank-note. "I never had so much in my life."

At this Mrs. Budge sniffed and, the Christmas celebration apparently abandoned in the excitement of the strange letter, she departed kitchenward.

Harkness volunteered to escort Susy and Mrs. Lynch back to the village. In a twinkling the house had quieted so that the girls' footsteps, as they climbed the stairs, resounded strangely.

Robin leaned for a moment against the banister and looked back into the shadows of the great, dimly-lit hall.

"Listen a moment, Beryl! Can't you hear tiny echoes of voices and laughter? Don't you s'pose even the things we think and feel get into the air, too—and linger?"

Beryl tugged at her arm. "Oh, come on, Robin. You make me creepy. You'll be seeing ghosts in a moment. I want to have a good look at that letter. Wasn't it a surprise, though?"

But after a close study of it, Beryl threw the letter down in disappointment. "Not so much as a tiny crown on it! I'll bet she had someone write it for her, too. It looks all big and scrawly—like a man. Anyway, Robin, you ought to keep one of the bills as a souvenir."