"You're real kind," said Daisy Heimberger, flushing with pleasure. "If you've got so many you'll have enough for your ma and we, they'd be about 's nice a Christmas card as you could give us."
"We'll accept them with pleasure, and be much obliged," added May Daly, who, the Wyndhams had learned, was more ambitious than either of her friends.
"We was sayin' this mornin' that it must be a sorrowful kind of Christmas to you, and we'd like to show we thought of you if we knew how, or you wouldn't be mad," added Fanny Harmon.
"That was lovely," said Jessamy, heartily, flushing in her turn, and wondering that she felt so glad of a kind word from one of these girls. "We have had a good many more merry Christmases, but we won't mind if only my mother and cousin get well--" She stopped abruptly.
"Don't you fret," said Daisy Heimberger, coming around to pat dignified Jessamy kindly on the shoulder. "I wish you was goin' to the dance to-night like us; but your turn'll come, sure, an' most likely your ma and sister'll be all right in a day or two."
"Thank you," said Jessamy, gratefully, while Bab added: "We're very glad you are going to have a nice time, if we can't; but we shall be happier if we can add to your pleasure with the flowers. We'll send them down, and if you wrap them in wet newspapers and lay them outside on your window-sill in the shade they won't open, but will be just right to wear to-night. We have lots, so don't be afraid to take what we send."
"All right; we'll do something for you if ever we can," said May Daly. "So long, and I hope you'll have something nice happen to you to-day."
This little incident made both Jessamy and Bab feel that the sun shone brighter; it is such a pleasant thing to feel one can add even a trifle to some one's happiness, and every one's good wishes and liking are worth having.
Then the postman came and brought Christmas greetings for the girls from several of their old friends, and a letter from Mrs. Van Alyn, with an ivy-leaf from Stratford-on-Avon for Phyllis, a photograph of Botticelli's beautiful little picture of the "Nativity" in the National Gallery for Jessamy, and for Bab an oak-leaf from the sleepy old English town whence the first ancestor of the Wyndhams had sailed away to America two hundred years before. But, best and most wonderful of all, he brought a note from Aunt Henrietta, which Jessamy read aloud to Bab after they got up-stairs.