“I know,” he suddenly cried, turning upon Helen; “it can be your birthday treat!”
“Why, going to Dick Whittington--all of us.”
Helen had, most unfortunately for herself, a birthday only a week after Christmas, the result being that, in her own opinion at any rate, she never received “proper presents” on either of those two great present-giving occasions. She was always allowed, however, a “treat”; her requests were generally in the nature of food; once of a ride in the train; once even a visit to the Polchester Museum... It was difficult in those days to find “treats” in Polchester.
“Oh, do you think they'd let us?” she said, her eyes wide.
“We can try,” said Jeremy. “I heard Aunt Amy say the other day that she didn't think it was right for children to see acting, and Mother always does the opposite to what Aunt Amy says, so p'r'aps it will be all right. I wish Hamlet could go,” he added.
“It isn't silly,” Jeremy said indignantly. “It's all about a cat, anyway, and he'd love to see all the rats and things. He wouldn't bark if we told him not to, and I held his collar.”
“If Aunt Amy sat next him he would,” said Mary.
After this Helen needed a great deal of urging; but she heard that Lucy and Angela, the aforesaid daughters of the Dean, were going, and the spirit of rivalry drove her forward.
It happened that the Dean himself one day said something to Mr. Cole about “supporting a very praiseworthy effort. They are presenting, I understand, the proceeds of the first performance to the Cathedral Orphanage.”
Helen was surprised at the readiness with which her request was granted.
“We'll all go,” said Mr. Cole, in his genial, pastoral fashion. “Good for us... good for us... to see the little ones laugh. .. good for us all.”
Only Uncle Samuel said “that nothing would induce him--”
I pass swiftly over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after, although I should like to linger upon these sumptuous dates. Jeremy had a sumptuous time; Hamlet had a sumptuous time (a whole sugar rat, plates and plates of bones, and a shoe of Aunt Amy's); Mary and Helen had sumptuous times in their own feminine fashion.
Upon the evening of Christmas Eve, when the earth was snow-lit, and the street-lamps sparkled with crystals, and the rime on the doorsteps crackled beneath one's feet, Jeremy accompanied his mother on a present-leaving expedition. The excitement of that! The wonderful shapes and sizes of the parcels, the mysterious streets, the door-handles and the door-bells, the glittering stars, the maidservants, the sense of the lighted house, as though you opened a box full of excitements and then hurriedly shut the lid down again. Jeremy trembled and shook, not with cold, but with exalting, completely satisfying happiness.