Carols are what one thinks of at Christmas, and eggs seem to belong to Easter, but this was an especial egg that was very dear to Peggy because it was one of the first. Peggy and Alice had hunted with such anxious care, every morning in Hotel Hennery, to see if they could find any eggs, and each morning they were disappointed; for all the hens were moulting.

“It does seem as if they needn’t all moult at the same time,” said Peggy. “I do hope somebody will begin to lay before Thanksgiving, so we can have a Thanksgiving egg. Henrietta, don’t you think you could give me just one egg for Thanksgiving?”

Whatever Henrietta’s thoughts were, she kept them to herself, and not one hen produced an egg in time for Thanksgiving.

Mrs. Owen, with Peggy and Alice, dined with the Carters. Mrs. Carter wrote saying what pleasure it would give them all if they could come, and she added there would be no other guests except her husband’s Aunt Betsy and her brother Joe. She hoped it would not be too hard for Mrs. Owen to have a Thanksgiving dinner in her own old house; if she did not feel like it, she would understand.

So the children had a happy Thanksgiving, even without the Thanksgiving egg. And still Peggy and Alice looked eagerly for eggs and could not find even one. Autumn had changed to winter, and still the hens were moulting, and there were no eggs. The vegetable garden, at the back of the house, was now turned into a fairy country, for the brown earth was covered with a snowy quilt, and every twig on the trees and shrubs was encased in diamonds. The snow came suddenly—one night, when the children went to bed, the ground had been bare, and in the morning the world seemed all made over new. But still the dwellers in Hotel Hennery showed no signs of laying eggs.

And then one morning, a few days before Christmas, just as the children had given up hope, Peggy found an egg. It was a thrilling moment; and Angel Hen-Farrell was so proud to be the first of the hens to lay an egg that she would not stop talking about it. What she said sounded to Alice like “Cut-cut-cad-ar-cut, cadarcut, cadarcut,” but Peggy said she was talking a foreign language.

“I can translate it for you, Alice,” she said; “it is the Rhode Island Red language.”

“What is she saying?”

“She is saying: ‘Come and look at my first egg of the season. It is very beautiful. The shell is of the palest brown, like coffee ice-cream. It is very beautiful. Look at it, all ye hens who have laid nothing. It is very beautiful—of palest brown, like coffee ice-cream.’”

Diana had one of her ill turns, just before Christmas; and the poor little girl had to spend Christmas in bed. She was much better when the day came, but her father said she must not get up, but that she could see Peggy and Alice for a little while in the afternoon.

The children had hung their stockings up the night before, and they had been surprised and delighted with their presents. Peggy wanted to take them up to show to Diana.

“But there are such a lot of them,” Alice protested, “and some of them are so big.”

“We can wear up the furs and stocking-caps and mittens,” said Peggy, “and we can put the other things in a basket and carry them up on our new sled. She’d love to see her namesake.”

“I’m not going to take Diana out in such slippery walking,” said Alice, “she might get a fall and break her head.”

“As you please,” said Peggy; “but I know if I liked a person well enough to name a child after her, I’d take her up the first minute, slippery or not.”

“You might,” said Alice, “but I’m not going to. She is my child, and she’s very breakable.”

“Well, anyway, I am going to take Diana a Christmas egg, breakable or not.”

“It isn’t your egg; it’s mother’s,” Alice reminded her; for Henrietta had not begun to lay.

“I’m sure mother will let me have an egg to give to Diana, won’t you, mother?”

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Owen; “I should never have had any of my Rhode Island friends if it had not been for Peggy.”

“I think I’ll write a verse to go with the egg,” said Peggy.

Alice admired the way in which Peggy could write verses. Peggy had only to take a pencil in hand, and a verse seemed to come out on the paper. “I think the verses live inside the pencil,” Peggy once said. She liked a blue pencil best. It seemed to have more interesting verses living inside it than a black one.

“I’d like to see if I can do it,” Alice said.

“All right,” and Peggy handed the pencil over. “Don’t hold it so tight; hold it loosely, like this.”

But the pencil would write nothing for Alice, no matter how she held it. And Peggy had only held it a few minutes before she wrote a verse. She sat with her eyes tight shut, for she said she could think better. And presently Peggy and the pencil wrote a Christmas verse. She liked it so well she copied it on a sheet of her best Christmas note-paper. At the head of the sheet was the picture of a window with a lighted candle and a Christmas wreath; and there were a boy and a girl outside, singing Christmas carols. This was the verse that Peggy and the pencil wrote.

“I’d like to send a Christmas carol,
To please and cheer my dear Diana:
But here’s an egg Angel Hen-Farrell
Has laid in her best Christmas manner.”

Mrs. Owen packed the egg carefully with cotton wool in a small box. She folded the paper with the verse on it and put that on top. She tied the box up with some Christmas ribbon that had come around one of Peggy’s presents. The ribbon had holly leaves with red berries on it. She slipped a tiny Santa Claus card under the ribbon. On the card Peggy wrote, “Diana, from a friend who lives in Hotel Hennery.”

Peggy put the box in a bag, and some other presents for Diana, from Mrs. Owen and Alice and herself; and they put in a few of their presents and cards to show her. It was very slippery. Their mother went with them as far as the Thorntons’ and she carried the bag. Then Peggy carried it, for a time, and then Alice. Peggy fell down once. She landed on the back of her head, but she held the bag out in front of her so the egg should not get broken.

Diana was delighted to see them. She was in bed, in a pretty brown woolen dressing-gown, that was just the shade of her hair and eyes. The bed was covered with books and games, and there were two dolls leaning against the footboard, and one in Diana’s arms. She was a pretty doll, with yellow hair, almost the color of Peggy’s hair, and eyes that opened and shut.

“See, she shuts her eyes tight, just as you do, Peggy, when you are thinking hard,” said Diana. “She looks quite a lot like you.”

“Her eyes are blue and mine are gray,” said Peggy. “I wonder why they never make dolls with gray eyes.”

“She is named for you,” Diana announced. “Tom and Christopher gave her to me, and she came with her name written on a Christmas card that was pinned to her dress, ‘Peggy Owen Carter,’ and Tom wrote a poem that came with her.”

Diana hunted through the box which held her Christmas cards and letters, and finally found the verses, which she read aloud.

“Closed in her room, in her white bed,
Poor little suffering martyr,
While others skate or coast with sled,
There lies Diana Carter.
“But she’s so joyous in her mind,
She makes our Christmas merry.
She’s quite adorably kind,
With lips like a red berry.
A holly berry, bright and gay,
Some children may be smarter,
But there’s no child on Christmas Day
Sweeter than dear Di Carter.
“So, while in her white bed she lies,
Poor little Christmas martyr,
We give her as a glad surprise,
Miss Peggy Owen Carter.
“Her eyes are blue, her hair is gold,
She surely is a charmer.
We rescued her, like knights of old,
And vowed that naught should harm her.
“For she was living in a shop,
In a glass case, this treasure,
Where she could neither run nor hop,
With weary months of leisure.
“So Peggy Owen Carter comes,
With joyous Christmas greeting,
A carol gay, she softly hums,
Joy’s long, if time is fleeting.”

“What a nice poem,” said Peggy, with a sigh of envy.

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Diana.

“I wish I could write poetry like that,” said Peggy. “I just wrote one verse. It’s in my present to you.”

“Oh, have you brought me a present?” Diana said, in delight.

“Yes, mother and Alice and I have each given you one, and there is this one from Angel Hen-Farrell.”

“An egg!” Diana cried. “Father said I could have an egg for my supper. I’ll have it dropped on toast. I couldn’t have any of the Christmas dinner, except the oyster soup.”

“Oh, you poor darling!” said Peggy.

“It was very good soup,” said Diana, “and I was so happy to have Peggy Owen Carter and the rest of my presents; and the carols, last night, were so lovely!”

“Carols last night?” the children cried. “We didn’t hear any.”

“The Christmas Waits came and sang under my window. I could see them from my bed. The leader carried a torch so the others could see to read their books. He had on a red cloak. And they sang such beautiful carols!”

“Oh, why didn’t they come out and sing to us?” said Alice.

“You are pretty far out of town. I think they only sang to sick people and old people. They went up to the hospital, and they asked father for a list of his patients who were not too sick to be disturbed by the singing.”

“Well, anyway, I’d rather have been well than to have heard the carols,” said Peggy. “You poor dear, I can’t get over your being in bed on Christmas Day.”

But Diana’s eyes were shining. “I shouldn’t have had Tom’s poem if I had been well,” she said, “or the Christmas egg. Even if one is sick, Christmas is the happiest time in all the year.”