“I don’t know what to give him for Christmas!”

Mrs. Tom looked tragically at the group consulting over their father-in-law in the old-fashioned library. Miss Clara, the unmarried daughter, had left the room.

“We have a picture,” announced Mrs. Andrew complacently; “a cathedral interior, beautifully dark and perspective. Little Mary has a cup and saucer, and Francis a whisk broom.”

“My boys can give black-bordered silk handkerchiefs,” said Mrs. Frank. “Clara suggests that I have that armchair re-covered, the one he never sits in.”

“Malcolm had better get him another dozen cases of mineral water,” said Mrs. Malcolm. “When it’s in the house he drinks it. But that hardly seems enough, father’s so generous to us. I shall buy a small refrigerator for his room—it’s so useful in sickness.”

“What do you think of rubber water-bags[230] in assorted sizes?” suggested Mrs. Walter eagerly. “If he had a pain in two or three places at once they’d be very handy.”

“Ah!” Mrs. Frank lowered her voice. “I dread coming here Christmas afternoon and staying to supper; don’t you? We can get along all right, and the little girls bring their dolls, but boys are so restless—and men, too! It was so different when Kate and her children were living here, but last year——! Clara doesn’t know how to make the house attractive.”

“She worries so now that father has to stay up-stairs,” agreed Mrs. Malcolm feelingly. “The boys love their grandfather, but there’s nothing for them to do. Why, Violet, you’re not going?”

“I must,” answered a girl with reddish hair and pretty, long-lashed eyes, who was Mrs. Arthur. She had risen, and was throwing a white boa around her neck. Her white teeth flashed suddenly in a smile: “I never was of so much importance before. Good-bye, everybody!”

She ran down the hall, looking in at an open doorway to call an audacious “Last tag!” to a tall old man who sat there reading, and receive his quick, amused response before she went swiftly homeward.

Violet’s appointment with the baby was[231] very important indeed. As she sat afterwards in the darkened nursery, with the infant’s little downy head against her warm breast, her thoughts went back to grandfather. Somehow his Christmas prospects depressed her—the dark picture and the mineral water, the re-covered chair, the refrigerator and the rubber bags seemed so unlightsome; there was nothing from which the most willing mind could conjure festivity. Even the perennial handkerchiefs and whisk brooms and cups and saucers failed to cheer her. It seemed dreadful to be so old that you weren’t supposed to want anything anybody else did, to have everything so tiresomely suitable. Violet had an irreverent desire to send her father-in-law a pink necktie or a flippant poster.

There could be no greater contrast to the needs of Age than this softly-curtained place, with its white furniture, and a blue rug in front of the brass andirons on which the pine logs burned aromatically. A blue and white bassinet swung by a gilded rod, and a white willow hamper showed the blue satin-lined tray, filled with miniature ivory toilet articles, and tiny garments, laced and ribboned—all the dainty appanage of a “first” baby.

A silver and mother-of-pearl rattle and a French clown, belled and tinselled, on a white[232] stick, lay upon the blue table-cover, while a large drum, fastened on the wall above, showed that in the pride of welcoming a boy love hadn’t been able to wait for him to grow into his heritage.

Her sisters-in-law characterized Violet fondly as a mere child; in truth she was a jolly little girl, but underneath the jollity were the directness and insight, and the shy, deep feeling of a child, so hidden as to be almost unguessed. Only her husband saw and reverenced that unfathomed sweetness. But even he did not know of those far-off journeys which her spirit took in company with her little new-born son, in the wonder of his soft, warm mouth, his tiny feet, and unconscious, clasping fingers.

The birth of her child had been to Violet also the birth of Thought; she pondered on the mysteries; for the first time she realized the existence of that great chain whose links are composed alternately of life and death, with the coming and the going of generations. In this infant life she saw the time when her own days should be numbered, and grew pale, yet unafraid, as she held him closer, because the goodness of God was so near.

He was such a very little baby that he was not much of anything as yet to any one but[233] his mother, though his father was indeed unmeasurably proud of him as a son and heir, and regarded him with deeply expectant, if amused, affection. But to Violet he was a wellspring not only of the traditional pleasure but of infinitely more. As one who stands with the ear to a sea-shell, rapt with the sound of the mysterious murmurs of the far-off ocean, so Violet, when she sat bending over her baby, felt a deep, tremulous connection with beautiful, unseen things that were holiness unto the Lord. She was so happy that she longed for every one to be happy; her child-heart even yearned maternally over grandfather, who had lived so many years that people couldn’t see that he was still young. She was a partner in the secret; if she called “Last tag” to him it was because she knew he liked it. He was a kind, wise old man, who submitted patiently to Miss Clara’s fusses and restrictions because he saw the love back of them; and he had lived his life so fully and well that it did not seem worth while to strive to live it now. Yet sometimes, as Violet divined, he was contented to dwell in the past because the present was a little lonely now that the house was no longer the rallying-place for the young, as in the time of his daughter Kate, who had children of her own.

[234]

“Little blessedest! I want your grandfather to have a Merry Christmas,” said Violet confidingly to the baby in her arms, who raised his tiny lashes as if in response, and looked at her an instant before the lids fell shut again. She pressed him closer in adoration. “Oh, aren’t you sweet, aren’t you sweet!” and fell to kissing him softly, a process from which she found that mothers gain wisdom.

“Did you decide what to get for father yesterday?” asked her husband the next morning. He was a man of noticeably fine appearance, and a lawyer of repute; it was still a wonder in the family how he had ever come to marry Violet, who yet seemed to suit him exactly.

“No,” answered Violet

“Then I think you’d better get that new dictionary I was speaking of; it’s published by Worden. I’ll leave you the money.”

“I thought he had so many dictionaries.”

“My dear child, that’s just the reason for giving him another.”

“I will not get him a dictionary,” said Violet. Yet she weakened after a tour through the shops. She could find nothing for her father-in-law that appealed in the least to an imagination all ready to be fired. Yet it was joy to be out for Christmas shopping[235] in the crisp air to one who had been so little able lately to go abroad, while before her raptured vision she saw ever a wee sock hung by the nursery hearth, and a tiny lighted tree. Many little children were to be made happy this holy-tide because her child had come to her—Violet’s thank-offering had flowed by many streams to reach unseen baby hands. As she went along now she stopped to slip coins into the palms of longing boys and girls looking in at Christmas-decked windows.

“Oh, Violet!”

It was Mrs. Tom who clutched her. “Isn’t it dreadful—the rush! I’m nearly dragged to pieces. I’ve just bought an inkstand for father, in the shape of a peach, with a thermometer on it—the kind of thing no one ever uses, but I was desperate. I’ve a big woolly sheep for your baby, but if you think he’s too little for it——”

“Oh, no!” cried Violet, her face rosy with pleasure. “How dear of you!” She could have embraced Mrs. Tom before crossing over to the toy store, a ravishing spot, one window of which was given up to regiments and regiments of lead soldiers afoot and on horse............