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“Contr’ry, no!” echoed the twins.

“Hush! You mus’n’t say that. That’s just what they say at votin’s.”

“Gee-man-tally! But you girls ‘re awfully mixed,” Conrad howled, with laughter. “They don’t have any ‘contr’ry no’s’ when they vote by holdin’ up right hands. Besides, Dorothea held up her left hand, for I saw her.”

“Which is quite correct, Mr. Smartie, since we all know that Dolly is left-handed. You meant to vote for the party, didn’t you, dearie?” Meg added, turning to Dorothea.

For answer the little maid only bobbed her head, thrusting both hands behind her, as if afraid to trust them again.

“But I haven’t got but thest a nickel,” she ventured, presently. “F’lix says it’ll buy salt.”

“Salt!” said Conrad. “Well, I should smile! It would buy salt enough to pickle the whole party. Why, that little St. Johns woman goes out with a nickel an’ lays in provisions. I’ve seen her do it.”

“Shame on you, Buddy!”

“I’m not jokin’, Meg. At least, I saw her buy a quartie’s worth o’ coffee and a quartie’s worth o’ sugar, an’ then ask for lagniappe o’ salt. Ain’t that layin’ in provisions? She uses a cigar-box for her pantry, too.”

“Well,” she protested, seriously, “what of it, Conrad? It doesn’t take much for one very little person. Now, then, the party is voted for; but there’s one more thing to be done before it can be really decided. We must ask Momsy’s permission, of course. And that is goin’ to be hard, because I don’t want her to know about it. She has to be out reportin’ festivals for the paper clear up to Christmas mornin’, and if she knows about it, she’ll worry over it. So I propose to ask her to let us give her a Christmas surprise, and not tell her what it is.”

“And we know just what she’ll say,” Conrad interrupted; “she’ll say, ‘If you older children all agree upon anything, I’m sure it can’t be very far wrong or foolish’–just as she did time we put up the stove in her room.”

“Yes, I can hear her now,” said Ethel. “But still we must let her say it before we do a single thing, because, you know, she mightn’t. An’ then where’d the party be?”

“It would be scattered around where it was last Christmas–where all the parties are that don’t be,” said Conrad. “They must be the ones we are always put down for, an’ that’s how we get left; eh, Sisty?”

“Never mind, Buddy; we won’t get left, as you call it, this time, anyway–unless, of course, Momsy vetoes it.”

“Vetoes what, children?”

They had been so noisy that they had not heard their mother’s step on the creaking stairs.

Mrs. Frey carried her pencil and notes, and she looked tired, but she smiled indulgently as she repeated, “What am I to veto, dearies–or to approve?”

“It’s a sequet! A Trismas sequet!”

“Yes, an’ it’s got owanges in it–“

“–An’ bananas!”

“Hush, you ponies! And, Dolly, not another word!” Meg had resolutely taken the floor again.

“Momsy, we’ve been consulting about our Christmas money, and we’ve voted to ask you to let us do something with it, and not to tell you a thing about it, only “–and here she glanced for approval at Ethel and Conrad–“only we ought to tell you, Momsy, dear, that the surprise isn’t for you this time.”

And then Mrs. Frey, sweet mother that she was, made just the little speech they thought she would make, and when they had kissed her, and all, even to Ethel, who seemed now as enthusiastic as the others, caught hands and danced around the dinner table, she was glad she had consented.

It was such a delight to be able to supplement their scant Christmas prospects with an indulgence giving such pleasure.

“And I’m glad it isn’t for me, children,” she added, as soon as the hubbub gave her a hearing. “I’m very glad. You know you strained a point last year, and I’m sure you did right. My little stove has been a great comfort. But I am always certain of just as many home-made presents as I have children, and they are the ones I value. Dolly’s lamp-lighters are not all used up yet, and if she were to give me another bundle this Christmas I shouldn’t feel sorry. But our little Christmas money we want to send out on some loving mission. And, by-the-way, I have two dollars which may go with yours if you need it–if it will make some poor body’s bed softer or his dinner better.”