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The door-key, though, was exactly where the old Butler had said it would be,–under the door mat, and the key itself turned astonishingly cordially in the rusty old lock. Never in her whole little life having owned a door-key to her own house it seemed quite an adventure in itself to be walking thus possessively through an unfamiliar hall into an absolutely unknown kitchen and goodness knew what on either side and beyond.

Perfectly simply too as the old Butler had promised, the four dog dishes, heaping to the brim, loomed in prim line upon the kitchen table waiting for distribution.

“U-m-m,” sniffed Flame. “Nothing but mush! Mush!–All over the world to-day I suppose–while their masters are feasting at other people’s houses on puddings and–and cigarettes! How the poor darlings must suffer! Locked in sheds! Tied in yards! Stuffed down cellar!”

“Me-o-w,” twinged a plaintive hint from the hallway just outside.

“Oh, but cats are different,” argued Flame. “So soft, so plushy, so spineless! Cats were meant to be stuffed into things.”

Without further parleying she doffed her red tam and sweater, donned a huge white all-enveloping pinafore, and started to ameliorate as best she could the Christmas sufferings of the “poor darlings” immediately at hand.

It was at least a yellow kitchen,–or had been once. In all that gray, dank, neglected house, the one suggestion of old sunshine.

“We shall have our dinner here,” chuckled Flame. “After the carols–we shall have our dinner here.”

Very boisterously in the yard just outside the window the four dogs scuffled and raced for sheer excitement and joy at this most unexpected advent of human companionship. Intermittently from time to time by the aid of old boxes or barrels they clawed their way up to the cobwebby window-sill to peer at the strange proceedings. Intermittently from time to time they fell back into the frozen yard in a chaos of fur and yelps.

By five o’clock certainly the faded yellow kitchen must have looked very strange, even to a dog!

Straight down its dingy, wobbly-floored center stretched a long table cheerfully spread with “the Rev. Mrs. Flamande Nourice’s” second best table cloth. Quaint high-backed chairs dragged in from the shadowy parlor circled the table. A pleasant china plate gleamed like a hand-painted moon before each chair. At one end of the table loomed a big brown turkey; at the other, the appropriate vegetables. Pies, cakes, and doughnuts, interspersed themselves between. Green wreaths streaming with scarlet ribbons hung nonchalantly across every chair-top. Tinsel garlands shone on the walls. In the doorway reared a hastily constructed mimicry of a railroad crossing sign.

Directly opposite and conspicuously placed above the rusty stove-pipe stretched the Parish’s Gift Motto–duly re-adjusted.

“Peace on Earth, Good Will to Dogs.”

“Fatuously silly,” admitted Flame even to herself. “But yet it does add something to the Gayety of Rations!”

Stepping aside for a single thrilling moment to study the full effect of her handiwork, the first psychological puzzle of her life smote sharply across her senses. Namely, that you never really get the whole fun out of anything unless you are absolutely alone.–But the very first instant you find yourself absolutely alone with a Really-Good-Time you begin to twist and turn and hunt about for somebody Very Special to share it with you!

The only “Very Special” person that Flame could think of was “Bertrand the Lay Reader.”

All a-blush with the sheer mental surprise of it she fled to the shed door to summon the dogs.

“Maybe even the dogs won’t come!” she reasoned hectically. “Maybe nothing will come! Maybe that’s always the way things happen when you get your own way about something else!”

Like a blast from the Arctic the Christmas twilight swept in on her. It crisped her cheeks,–crinkled her hair! Turned her spine to a wisp of tinsel! All outdoors seemed suddenly creaking with frost! All indoors, with unknownness!

“Come, Beautiful-Lovely!” she implored. “Come, Lopsy! Miss Flora! Come, Blunder-Blot!'”

But there was really no need of entreaty. A turn of the door-knob would have brought them! Leaping, loping, four abreast, they came plunging like so many North Winds to their party! Streak of Snow,–Glow of Fire,–Frozen Mud–Sun-Spot!–Yelping-mouthed–slapping-tailed! Backs bristling! Legs stiffening! Wolf Hound, Setter, Bull Dog, Dalmatian,–each according to his kind, hurtling, crowding!