All last night the wind whistled and howled about the house. This morning we woke to a snowstorm of almost blizzard proportions. And, oh, but the atmosphere was arctic!

“You get up first,” says Ernie, poking her little pink nose above the bed-covers.

“Indeed, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I answered. “It’s your turn.”

“I thought you loved me, Elizabeth!” wailed Ernestine, reproachfully.

“So I do,” I answered, and hopped heroically forth to the glacial matting.

Ernie followed with hysterical giggles,—and I can tell you it did not take us long to dress!

Fortunately Miss Brown had gone to spend Sunday with a niece in Flatbush, so we did not have her to worry about. Mother made the nursery as comfortable as possible at the sacrifice of heavy inroads upon our precious stock of coal, and there Haze, Ernie, Robin, and I passed the morning. For Haze was taken ill Sunday night with a sharp attack of laryngitis, and was still unfit for the office; and we did not think it wise for Ernie to attempt to make her way to school through the snowdrifts. But, though it is not often now that we have the chance of a day together, it was not especially jolly.

Poor Hazey squatted on the register, very hoarse and gloomy, pegging away at his eternal CÆsar; I darned stockings, and understood just how it was that Rose had used to be cross on a stormy Monday; while Ernie, hid in a corner behind a series of screens that she had contrived, sang carols and asked ridiculous riddles, busy as she declared upon “a secret.”

As for Robin, he sat in his shabby little grey flannel dressing-gown, propped up with pillows in the middle of mother’s big bed, talking about Santa Claus and the things he wanted for Christmas.—

“I’ve been good for three weeks,” he boasted vaingloriously. “I’ve taken my cod-liver oil,—haven’t I, Elizabeth? And I’ve finished the First Reader, and learned to spell squirrel! Hope old Santa knows about it, ’cause I want a lot o’ things!”

“Why don’t you write a letter, and tell him what you want?” suggested Ernie.

Whereat, Hazard scowled at her over his CÆsar, and I shook my head warningly; but it was already too late. Robin caught gleefully at the suggestion.

“I will,” he piped. “Bring me some paper and a pencil, Elizabeth. Hurry up, now, honey!” For Bobsie dearly loves to write letters, and the fact that no one can read them but himself does not dampen his enthusiasm in the least.

“What is the difference,” sang out Ernie, blithely, while I searched mother’s desk for a half-sheet of note paper, “between a horse and an egg?”

“There’s no difference between you and a donkey,” growled Hazard.

“Well, I like that!” retorted Ernestine; while Robin, after a vigorous suck at the stump of pencil I had handed him, began unctuously upon his letter.

“Dear Santa Claus,” he muttered,—

“I want the Mowgli books,—”

“Jungle Books,” corrected Ernie.

“—and a horse just like Georgie’s,” continued Robin, with a flourish.

“Why not a little, white, cuddly, flannel rabbit with pink eyes?” suggested Ernestine. “You could take that to bed with you, you know, Robin, and the horse would have to sleep in a stall in the closet, which wouldn’t be nearly so convenient!”

“Yes, a little white flannel rabbit with pink eyes,” corrected Robin, obligingly. “And a steamboat what can whistle, and a box of building blocks, an’——”

But here Haze slammed to his book.

“Shut up, Bobs,” he commanded, roughly. “What’s the good? There isn’t any Santa Claus, and you might just as well know it now, as——” but there he stopped; for Robin was staring at him with such round frightened eyes that Ernie and I cried out together,—

“Oh, Hazard! how can you! You ought to be ashamed!”

Haze opened his book again. “I don’t care,” he muttered. “There isn’t any use in his running on like that. He isn’t going to get anything; we all know it, and——”

But Bobsie cried, “I will, too! I’ve taken my cod-liver oil, I tell you!”

And Ernie, running to his side, flung her arms protectingly about him. “Of course you have, honey,” she crooned, “and of course you’ll get some presents! Hazard is only teasing. The idea of there not being any Santa Claus! Who gave you your things last year, I’d like to know?”

Robin’s chin was beginning to quiver, and two great teardrops blinked on the ends of his long lashes. He held his arms tight about Ernie’s neck, and cuddled up against her side.

Haze looked at them a moment, threw his book aside, and strode from the room, I following.

“Hazard!” I began, as soon as the door had shut upon us. “It was cruel! How could you do such a thing?”

“Don’t bother!” answered Haze, gruffly. “I didn’t intend to say it that way, but—Robin isn’t going to get anything. I couldn’t bear to have him go on like that, and know it was all my fault, and,—oh, let me alone, Elizabeth!”

And, shaking my hand from his arm, he turned and bolted upstairs, where I heard the workshop door slam to behind him.

Naturally, if the rest of the house is cold, you can imagine what it must be in the workshop. I was very much afraid that Hazard would add to his sore throat; but I knew it would do no good to speak to him just then, so I returned to the nursery, where Ernie was still sitting on the side of the bed, her arms close about Robin, whispering to him in the most seductive of tones.

“Yes, he looked just like the pictures, Bobsie,” she was saying. “It was in front of Macy’s that we met, and I think he must have been looking about at the toys. I was very much surprised, of course; but I went right up to him, and said,—‘How do you do, Mr. Santa Claus? I’m Robin Graham’s sister.’”

“Did you, Ernie!” cried Robin, with shining eyes. “And what did he say?”

“I can’t tell you that,” returned Ernie, mysteriously, “because it is a secret. But don’t you worry, honey; everything is going to be all right!”

Here I thought it time to interfere; for, though Hazard had been hasty and even unkind in the way he spoke, still we all knew that Robin was not going to get anything for Christmas,—so what was the use of comforting him with false hopes that could only lead to a still more bitter disappointment?

“Run down and set the table, Ernie,” I said, a little dryly. “It’s time for Robin to have his reading lesson, now.”

Bobsie looked at me half shyly under his dark lashes.

“I have a Secret,” he said, and gave Ernie a long kiss before he let her go.

After luncheon, while we were washing the dishes, I asked Ernestine what she meant by talking to Robin so. “There is no good in deceiving him,” I said. “Of course, Hazard did not set about it in the right way, but sooner or later he will have to be told. He isn’t going to get anything. You heard what mother said.”

Ernie looked at me in blank amazement. “Why, Elizabeth!” she cried.

“Ernestine,” I returned, “remember,—you are nearly thirteen years old! Do you believe in Santa Claus, too?”

Ernie laughed and flapped her dish towel. “Of course I do,” she answered, “after my own fashion. You and Hazard are too silly! Mother didn’t mean, I suppose, that she was going to take away all the presents that come to the house for Robin, and burn them? She only meant that we couldn’t spend any money. What’s to prevent Aunt Adelaide giving him something as she always does, I’d like to know? and Georgie? and Geof?” Here Ernie began to two-step to the cupboard with a pile of plates. “Oh, Elizabeth,” she chortled, “he says I can help him choose ’em! Robin will be simply delighted! He has never had anything so stunning in all his life! But there,”—Ernie rattled the plates perilously down on the cupboard shelf. “It’s a secret. I promised I wouldn’t breathe a word! And I know another that Miss Brown told me, and another with Mrs. Burroughs! Hazard is a grumpy goose. Why can’t he think of something to give Bobsie, the way I’m doing,—it needn’t cost, you know,—instead of being so huffy and remorseful about a Past that can’t be Helped?”

Now wasn’t that exactly like Ernie? Christmas is her birthday, and she seems to have the very spirit in her veins. If we were wrecked upon a desert island, I believe she would still find some appropriate way to celebrate.

“So that is what you were busy about behind your screen?” I cried.

“Of course,” says Ernie. “What did you think? You must make something, too, Elizabeth, and I know mother will; and the letter was just a blind to get Robin to believe he wanted the things we can afford to give him. I thought you and Hazard would understand.—And even if we are poor, so long as we love one another and keep jolly, what’s the odds?”

“Ernie,” I answered, “you are a darling. There aren’t any!”

So then we sought an interview with Hazard to explain how matters stood.

“All right,” he answered, none too enthusiastic just at first. “I’ll try,—but it’s different with you girls. I can’t make anything, you see,—little fol-de-rols out of sawdust and gold paper. And everything I’ve saved must go for car fare and expenses these next few weeks. Honestly, I haven’t a cent to call my own, except my lucky penny of 1865, the year Lincoln was shot. And perhaps I’ve lost that.” He searched his pockets. “No,—here it is.”

“Hand it over,” says Ernie. “I know you’ll think the best luck you can possibly have just now is to buy a nice Christmas present for Robin. I’ll do your shopping this year, Hazey, and I’ll promise to get something Bobs will really like, too. Cheer up, children! No Santa Claus, indeed! I’m ashamed of you.”