“Don’t _you_ think so, Jane?” asked Leslie coolly. She had ignored Viola all that afternoon by addressing me, and after she did this pointedly, Viola always huffed up, and appealed to me, too. It made me feel as if I were interpreter in the tower of Babel, and it left me far from comfortable! And it was all _so_ silly! “I certainly do,” I answered as I looked around, and it was fine! Mr. Wake, who had accepted our invitation with great pleasure, had sent in flowers and big branches of foliage from his place, and these were in vases, and massed in corners; and Sam, who had just left, had helped us make twisted red streamers that he had wound around the funny chandelier, and we had put red paper around all the lumpy vases that Miss Julianna seemed to like so much; and the bare little tree was on the center table, with a ring of candles, set up in their own grease around it. It doesn’t sound especially pretty, but it was, as well as very cheering. Over the back of a chair hung a long red gown that Leslie was going to wear as she gave out a few little presents. Her giving them was entirely correct, because the Italian Santa Claus is a lady called “Befana,” and the only way we changed things was by having the Befana come on Christmas Eve instead of on Epiphany. On the mantel were some pink tarletan stockings filled with candy--there was no fastening them up, the mantel was made of marble--and Leslie had got a little piece of mistletoe which Sam had hung in the doorway. “Really, it has the feeling of Christmas,” said Leslie, as she picked up the gown, which I had made on her with safety pins. “_Hasn’t_ it?” murmured Viola, who, in spite of saying the most bitter things, did want to make up. “When it’s lit by candles it will be pretty,” I prophesied, and it was. Then we picked up the hammers and the nails that always lie around on the edges of things after you’ve put up Christmas decorations, and went to dress, closing the door very carefully after us, and locking it. Beata, who was tremendously interested in the new version of their Befana, and who had asked a great deal--through Miss Julianna--about the person she called “Meester Sant’ Claus,” smiled at us as we passed the kitchen, and I saw that she hadn’t cried that day, and that she wore her best dress, and a shabby, yet gay artificial flower in one side of her dark hair. “Sant’ Claus come!” she managed, while we were yet within hearing; Leslie called “Not yet--” and then we went on, and parted.