School was dismissed at twelve-thirty, Carolyn and Betty saying an affectionate good-bye, for Carolyn was going away for the vacation. “It’s a shame you aren’t going to _your_ grandmother’s,” said Carolyn. “I may get out to the carols tonight, Betty, but it’s more than likely that I can’t. I think we’ll start tonight. Mother wasn’t sure. Have a good time and don’t forget your old Carolyn. Merry Christmas!”
The girls exchanged their greetings thus and Betty slipped a small package into Carolyn’s hand. “Now don’t open it till Christmas, Carolyn—tomorrow morning! Oh, is it really here?”
“It doesn’t seem possible does it? But if we go tonight, mayn’t I open it? It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Sure enough. And lots of people have their gifts on Christmas Eve. Of course you may. But I have your pretty Christmasy package all tucked away, ready to open Christmas morning. I’m sorry to be so late with mine; but you see I just finished it.”
Carolyn laughed. “How you ever had time to _make anything_, I don’t see, but I’ll appreciate it all the more.”
“It isn’t much, but I hope you’ll like it. Yes, we almost ought to be with Grandma tomorrow, but you see she is going away herself. She’s already gone. They’re packing her off to Florida for her own good, though some one is with her. Well, Merry Christmas, Carolyn, and I’ll _never_ forget you. Couldn’t if I tried!”
Excited and hungry, the Lee children reached home for a late lunch together. Dick and Doris “gabbled” so fast Amy Lou couldn’t tell a thing, she said, and they had had such a beautiful Christmas morning at their school. Amy Lou almost felt hurt that her mother had gone to the high school instead, or that she could not have gone with her; but Mrs. Lee reminded her that she had visited her school when they had their “great Christmas program” and Amy Lou had “spoken a piece,” for that was what they called it in the old days when _she_ was a little girl.
“_We_ read things,” importantly said Amy Lou, “or have a ‘number.’” After that she took her dolls into the front room to play school and stood up for half an hour singing all about “good Saint Nick” with an “Oh, oh, oh, who wouldn’t go?” and the rest of it, varied with “Jingle Bells,” “Holy Night,” and songs new and old, learned at school and Sunday school, where music made an especial appeal to little Amy Lou.