I want--" The words came
tremblingly, and presently she sat up.
"Carmencita Bell, you are a baby. Behave--your--self!" With the end of
the gingham apron the big blue eyes were wiped. "You can't do much in
this world, but you can keep from crying. Suppose Father was to know."
Her back straightened and her head went up. "Father isn't ever going
to know, and if I don't fill this stocking it won't be hanging on the
end of the mantelpiece when he wakes up. The locket must go in the
toe."
CHAPTER XVII
In half an hour the stocking, big and bulging, was hung in its
accustomed place, the packages for her father put on a chair by
themselves, and those for her left on the table, and as she rearranged
the latter something about the largest one arrested her attention,
and, stopping, she gazed at it with eyes puzzled and uncertain.
It looked--Cautiously her fingers were laid upon it. Undoubtedly it
looked like the box in which had been put the beautiful dark-blue coat
she had bought for the little friend of her friend. And that other box
was the size of the one the two dresses had been put in; and that was
a hat-box, and that a shoe-box, and the sash and beads and gloves and
ribbons, all the little things, had been put in a box that size.
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