It was well on in November when he flung himself into a Morris chair
one evening and groaned aloud:

"I don't believe Aunt Ida ever left any money. If she did I don't
believe we'll ever get any of it. And if we do, I know we'll not have
a sniff at it before January. One of the lawyers has been called
abroad on another case. We've got to stay in Carthage, at least over
Christmas."

"Christmas!" The word crackled and sputtered in Mrs. Budlong's brain
like a fuse in the dark. The past month had been so packed with other
excitements that she had forgotten the very word. Now it blew up and
came down as if one of her own unstable Christmas trees had toppled
over on her with all its ropes of tinsel, its lambent tapers, and its
eggshell splendors.




V

THE BITER BIT

First, Mrs. Budlong felt amazement that she could have so ignored the
very focus of her former ambition. Then she felt shame at her
unpreparedness. She caught the evening paper out of her husband's
lap to find the date. November ninth and not a Christmas thing
begun. Yet a few days and the news-stands would have apprised her
that Christmas was coming, for by the middle of November all the
magazines put on their holly and their chromos of the three Magi and