"Oh, blow the pig money! She won't know the difference. That pin is
only one dollar and ninety-eight cents and the bracelet two dollars
and forty-eight cents. Nothing could be worse than that, could it?"

"It could. Johnnie is a lazy good-for-nothing, and twenty-five cents
is all his pin is to cost. It will be big and blue, but not a penny
over twenty-five can be spent on it. I think we'd better get the
doll and the silk stockings and the sled first. I've already bought
a doll for Rosy, but it's in white, and we'll have to get the pink
one."

"And is the pig money going to do all that?" Laine's eyes were
searching Claudia's.

"It is." She laughed and turned away as if to see some one who was
passing. "It doesn't matter whose pig."

"Then I'll play the pig to-night! I've played it the wrong way often
enough. Why can't we be sensible? I've got a spending jag on, and
I've never been Christmas shopping before. Something is happening to
my backbone, something that used to happen in the days when I hung up
my stocking. Please be good and let me have a little Christmas!"

Claudia's forehead wrinkled and for a moment she hesitated, then
again her eyes sought his doubtfully. "I don't know whether I ought
to. You are very kind, but--"

"But nothing. I'm merely very selfish. Those things are all right.
Come on and let's go in the toy department. The doll is the most
important of all, and don't dolls have carriages or something? Here,