“We shall have to fall back upon the wardrobes,” she said at length. “You are a horrid wet-blanket, Charlie! I am sure I—”

Her remarks were cut short as the door opened, and with laughter and shouting a bevy of young people who had been at work in another part of the house rushed in. “It is come; it’s all right; don’t worry, Molly!” they sang in chorus.

“Do be quiet all of you; one can hardly hear oneself speak!”

The box from the costumer’s had arrived; the great costume party was saved; in short, excitement and bustle were in full swing at Vance Hall as it had been at Christmas-time since the young people could remember.

Adonis lifted himself from the sofa and proposed to open the box of dresses at once, and try them on.

“Charlie, you are a brick!—the very thing!”

“Oh! Yes, yes; let us try them on!” Molly broke through the eager voices:

“And we have not done the ball-room yet!” she said reproachfully.

“Oh! Bother the ball-room!” declared Adonis, now thoroughly aroused. “We have all night. We can’t do better than to don our finery.”

Molly sat down with an air of resigned patience. “I promised Mr. Pierson,” she observed quietly, “that the box should not be touched until he was here to superintend matters.”

“Oh, Pierson be blowed!” elegantly observed her brother. But Reuel Briggs suddenly dropped his work, walked over, and sided with Molly.

“You are quite right, Miss Molly; and you Charlie and Aubrey and the rest of you men, if you want to open the box tonight you must first decorate the ball-room. Business before pleasure.”

“Saved!—Saved! See my brave, true knight defends his lady fair.” Molly danced, practising the step she was about to astonish the company with on Christmas-night. “I think I am what the Scotch call ‘fev,’”8 she laughed. “I don’t know why I feel so awfully jolly tonight. I could positively fly from sheer excitement and delight.”

“Don’t you know why?” observed Cora. “I will tell you. It is because this is your last Christmas as Molly Vance; next year—”

“Ah, do not!” interrupted Molly, quickly. “Who knows what a year may bring forth. Is it not so, Dr. Briggs?” she turned appealingly to Reuel.

“Grief follows joy as clouds the sunlight. ‘Woe! Woe! Each heart must bleed, must break,’” was his secret thought as he bowed gravely. But on his face was a look of startled perplexity, for suddenly as she spoke to him it appeared that a dark veil settled like a pall over the laughing face at his side. He shivered.

“What’s the matter, Briggs?” called out Adonis. They had reached the ball-room and were standing over the piles of holly and evergreen, ready for an onslaught on the walls.

“Don’t be surprised if Briggs acts strangely,” continued Charlie. “It is in order for him to whoop it up in the spirit line.”