Читать книгу Phemie Frost's Experiences - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 27

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WE had a good long sleep after early service, and were all up bright as larks the next morning, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and waiting for that child to come down and see what Santa Claus had brought her. By and by we heard her coming. Mr. Dempster looked at his wife and smiled, as much as to say, "Won't our presents surprise her!" Cousin E. E. went to the door and opened it, looking pleased, and so like her old self that I could have kissed her.

At last Cecilia came in, sour as vinegar, with her hair half combed, and her sash trailing.

"Why, this is what I saw last night," says she, crossly.

"Look at the foot of the tree!" says E. E., eagerly.

Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself.

"A doll for me! The idea!" says she.

Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he:

"Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll—don't be ungrateful."

"Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!"

"Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is your father's present."

Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.

"Coral is for babies! That is worse yet! I just wish there hadn't been any Christmas at all," says she, a-flinging the beads in a lovely pink heap on the floor. "There now—I'll just go up-stairs and stay there!"

"Wait a minute, my darling," says E. E.; "mother has got something else."

Cecilia turned back a step, but scorned to let her sullen face brighten, though her eyes grew eager when Cousin E. E. took a little paper box from one of the baskets, and opened it.

"See here!"

Cecilia edged up to her mother, saw the emerald ring, and snatched at it.

"I bought it for Cousin Phœmie," says E. E., a-looking sort of pleadingly at me; "but as you are so disappointed, I'm sure she won't care."

"Cousin Phœmie! The idea!" Cecilia muttered to herself, as she tried the ring, first on one finger, then on another. "Of course she don't want it—old as the hills!"

I did not say one word while that creature carried off the first Christmas present I ever had in my life; but it seemed as if I should choke. Isn't it hard that a spoiled child like that should have the power to destroy the happiness of three grown people? But she did it.

The Christmas dinner was enough to make your mouths water, from this distance—the noblest sort of a turkey, stuffed with oysters, and everything to match—but none of us had much appetite for it. You can judge what my feelings amounted to, when I have lived one whole month in a boarding-house and couldn't get up an appetite—no, not even for the whitest meat of the breast! Old as the hills, indeed!