"Yes!" answered his wife, her dark eyes lustrous. Sometimes she didn't
look much older than little Mary. "One thing, though, I must say: I do
hope, dear, that--the children have been thinking so much of our present
to you and saving up so for it--I do hope, Joe, that if you are pleased
you'll show it. So far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter; but
sometimes--when, of course, I know how pleased you really are--you don't
show it at once to others. That's why I hope you'll show it to-morrow
if--"

"Great Scott! Clytie, let up on it! What do you want me to do--jump up
and down and make a fool of myself?" asked her husband scornfully. "You
leave me alone!"

It was Langshaw's firm rule, vainly protested even by his wife, that the
household should have breakfast on Christmas Day before tackling the
stockings--a hurried mockery of a meal, to be sure, yet to his masculine
idea a reënforcement of food for the infant stomach before the long,
hurtling joy of the day. The stockings and the piles under them were
taken in order, according to age--the youngest first and the others
waiting in rapt interest and admiration until their turn arrived--a
pretty ceremony.

In the delicious revelry of Baby's joy, as her trembling, fat little
fingers pulled forth dolls and their like, all else was forgotten until
it was Mary's turn, and then George's, and then the mother's. And then,
when he had forgotten all about it: "Now father!" There was seemingly a
breathless moment while all eyes turned to him.

"It's father's turn now; father's going to have his presents. Father,
sit down here on the sofa--it's your turn now."