"It is lovely and I do hope I can go," returned Jean ecstatically. She loved fairy stories above everything.
"Of course you can go. It isn't for about ten days, and you are not really ill, you know."
"I'm sort of ill," said Jean putting on a lackadaisical expression; "mother thought I had fever last night." It would never do to have her condition underrated, of course.
"Well, you will surely be well in ten days."
Jean admitted that she might be well by that time, and after deciding to call the doll Princess Herzlieb, the two went off together to play.
"I saw that little girl again this morning," Jack remarked when they were established in a corner. "The little girl we saw yesterday in the cemetery, the poor little girl."
"No, I only smiled. I am thinking, Jean, that it would be nice to do something for her at Christmas. We have always done something for somebody then, you know."
"But you don't know where she lives nor anything about her."
"No, but maybe I shall see her again. I will watch for her. I saw her this morning as I was going to school."
"What was she doing? Just walking along?"
"She was talking to the woman who turns the switch near our school."
"I thought of that, and if we don't see the little girl again before Christmas we might ask the woman or get some one else to do it. I know Nan would."
"Did she look very poor?" asked Jean trying to settle the doll before a table of books she had built.
"Poorer than ever, for she hadn't her Sunday clothes on."
"Maybe mother will let us give her some of our things."
"Maybe she will. I don't suppose she will have any Christmas tree, do you?"
"I heard Mrs. Hoyt say that everybody does have a tree in Germany."
"Oh, I suppose there are some who are too poor. Maybe the switch woman is the little girl's mother, and it was her father she was putting the candle and flowers for."
"I am going to ask her when we know her."
"Yes, I am. I don't think it would be anything at all. Jack, we ought to be saving up for Christmas, and here you've been spending money for me."
"Because you had to stay in and have a stupid time." There was nothing worse to Jack than to be deprived of her time out-of-doors.
"It wasn't very stupid. Mother made up some nice creer plays. I'll show you what I did." She produced her paper and informed her sister that she intended to add to her list of unusual things and to play the same play on rainy days in every new city she chanced to visit.
