He might have to return them, but he had enjoyed buying them.

He decided that he would give the blue one to Daryl. Blue and white it was, with exquisitely blended colors, and it seemed like the blue of the girl’s wonderful eyes. The crimson and white and black one would be gorgeous on quiet little Ruth with her brown hair and dark eyes.

He drew another sigh of relief as he finally folded them and put them back in the pretty gift boxes and wrote the girls’ names on them.

He gathered up the other things that he had discarded—“junk” he called it as he stuffed it grimly into the suitcase—and registered a resolve never to be guilty of buying anything like those again.

He opened the door most cautiously and tiptoed across the hall into the living room. All was quiet in the house. He hoped no one was around yet, though there was such a comfortable air of living and peace in the room that it hardly seemed possible, and that was certainly the aroma of coffee he smelled.

He went over to the fireplace where a brisk fire was crackling, giving good evidence of somebody having been on the job since last night, and there he carefully inserted his packages into the right stockings, or tied them on the outside when they were too large to go in. Somebody else had been to the stockings before him. Every stocking was lumpy and bulging. Even his own was filled to the brim and didn’t need the newspaper he had promised it to keep up appearances. It touched him to think of their kindness. This was a great family. How they took a stranger in! And a stranger whom they didn’t know about beforehand!

He turned away and looking toward the tree saw packages there piled beneath the branches. Ah! There was another chance! There must be more things among his collection that he could add. There was some fine perfume, he knew, and a lot of handkerchiefs, pretty ones. He had bought those afterward for fillers in case there were more people at that house party than he knew about. He could put several in a box. Perfume and handkerchiefs, a gold pencil, a small pocket compass. Oh, he could do very well and hold his own with this dear family.

So he hurried back into his room and tied up and labeled a few more things, feeling like a boy again, and having the time of his life.

Chapter 9

Alan had just finished placing his second installment of gifts under the tree when he became aware that someone was standing in the doorway, and turning he saw Daryl in a green dress that matched the holly leaves, and a white apron with little red bows of ribbon like holly berries. She was smiling and called out, “Merry Christmas! We were keeping still, hoping you would have a good sleep, but it seems you have stolen a march on us.”

“Oh, I had a wonderful sleep!” said Alan. “There must be some magic about that room and that bed. The morning came all too soon.”

“But why did you get up? Why didn’t you sleep later? We told you to sleep as long as you could.”

“I know,” he said, “but I was like a child! I never could sleep on Christmas morning. I wanted to see what had happened to the stockings. I should say a good deal has happened!” He grinned as he looked toward the mantel, and then glanced down at the motley array of packages under the tree.

“Isn’t it fun?” said Daryl. “I just love Christmas! Even when we were little kids Mother always let us make things for each other, and we always enjoyed the surprises so much. It didn’t matter what they were. I made Father a pair of woolen gloves one Christmas out of a piece of brown flannel. I ripped up his old ones and got the pattern. They were all crooked and cut the wrong way of the cloth and the stitches were funny and uneven, but Father made a big fuss about them, said they were the best gloves he had ever had, and wore them every cold day that winter, though I know they were awfully crooked and misshapen. Oh, some of the dearest memories I have are connected with Christmas. It is the best day of all the year.”

“I haven’t had a real Christmas since my mother died ten years ago,” said Alan wistfully. “That’s why I’m so pleased that fate dropped me down here and shut me in so that I could decently stay a little while and get a glimpse at one.”

“Don’t say ‘fate,’ say ‘our Father,’” said Mother Devereaux, appearing in the doorway.