Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/102

 "I'll have to get the stepladder, Lizzie; I can't reach to put this star on the top."

"I'll get it." Lizzie ran out into the kitchen and took the opportunity to throw her apron over her head and have a good cry, while Kate put her face down in hands stained by the branches of the little balsam tree. Joe! Joe!

When Lizzie came back they were both firmly cheerful.

"Look at this sugar apple! It started in with the brightest red cheek you ever saw, and it gets paler every year. Jodie can't resist licking it."

"Honest, Mis' Green, didja ever see anything like this doll house? And all the extras, the father and the little carpet sweeper and everything!"

Their faces glowed gently, like two good little girls, as they looked again at the magnificent dolls' house that had come for Charlotte. All the extras, as Lizzie said—the father in full evening dress with waved yellow china hair, the mother in a pink ball gown, the pink-and-white wax cockatoo in a gilt wire cage. And the doll-house food! Ham and eggs, fish with a tiny round of lemon and a touch of paper parsley, sausages, pink pudding with squiggles of chocolate, a little roast chicken.

Master Hoagland Driggs, Jr.'s small calling card was tied to the chimney with holly-red ribbon. Lizzie looked at it, sniffing.