"But--but----" Mrs. O'Dowd glanced keenly about, viewing the guilty faces and the indignant looks the older children centered on the two small culprits. She was a quick-witted woman and instantly put two and two together. "So it was Mary sent the celery, was it?" repeated she. "And who, pray, bought the turkey?" The temptation the question presented was too great for the youthful conspirators. "Uncle Fwedewic! Uncle Fwedewic!" cried Nell and Martin in a breath. "He bought it wiz his very own money," Nell went on to explain before she could be stopped. Oh, the game was all up now! Of what use was it to pretend anything after that? Martin heaved a sigh of delight. For days the secret had trembled on his tongue, making life uncomfortable and unnatural. Constitutionally it was his habit to let slip from that artless member anything that lurked at its tip and as a result he held secrets in abhorrence. Now the truth was out and he for one was glad it was. He would no longer be dreading an encounter with the O'Dowds or be under the trying necessity of acting a part. "The candy was mine," he announced calmly. "I gave it and Uncle Frederick paid the man." Julie ventured over the threshold. "So it's you we have to thank for our dinner!" she exclaimed. "You don't have us to _thank_," put in Mrs. McGregor quickly. "But you surely wouldn't have me be taking a dinner like that and not thanking you for it," said Julie. "And neither O'Dowd nor I had an inkling! Think of our coming up here Christmas morning and all of you keeping so mum!" "We'd have kept mum longer, if it hadn't been for Nell and Martin," Carl asserted. "I don't see why they couldn't shut up, Ma." "A secret's no easy treasure to have in one's possession," Mrs. O'Dowd put in quickly. "And you must remember they are but mites--Nell and Martin. Indeed, in my opinion, it's a miracle they didn't blurt it out long before this. You wouldn't get a child of mine to hold his peace any such while; neither the big ones nor the little could do it. Well, well! It was a happy day you gave us and you certainly deserved the dinner you got yourselves. And you had no notion when you sent ours you were to have one of your own." "No! When it came we thought for a moment you had sent our present back," Carl explained. "In other words, you were going without your dinner to give it to us," commented Julie. "We had our tree," Mary interrupted. "We didn't need both things." "It's few would have done what you did," Julie remarked quietly. "O'Dowd and I will not be forgetting it, either." Tears came into the eyes of the little woman and as if words failed her she wheeled about and disappeared down the dim hallway.