"Dear me, what a very hasty old gentleman!" said the woman to herself. "I'll go over and ask Mrs. March, and make sure it's all right." So the next day she went to see Mrs. March, who explained to her all the old gentleman's whims about sleeping, and that he was quite willing and able to pay whatever the queer stockings would cost. In a very few weeks, the stockings were all done; and the old gentleman was so pleased with them that he gave the woman an extra five-dollar bill, besides the sum she had charged for knitting them. And this was the way that there came to be hanging up in Nelly's and Rob's chamber two such huge stockings on this Christmas morning of which I am telling you. They were splendid stockings for Christmas stockings! It did really seem as if you never would get to the bottom of them. The children used to lay them down on the floor, and run around them, and pull out thing after thing. Mrs. March sometimes wished they were not quite so large: it took a great deal to fill them: but, after having once used them, she had not the heart to go back to the ordinary-sized stocking, for it would have been such a disappointment to the children. She used them, first, one Christmas when Nelly's chief present was a big doll about two feet and a half tall, which wore real baby clothes like a live baby. This was so big it could not go into a common stocking, and Mrs. March happened then to think of her father's. The old gentleman was delighted to have them used for the purpose, and stood by laughing hard, while Mrs. March put the things in. "Ha! ha!" he said, "the old stockings are good for more than one thing: aren't they?" But we are leaving Nelly and Rob a long time in bed waiting for their Christmas presents. It grew lighter and lighter, and still there was no sound in the house, and the room grew no warmer. Rob was so thoroughly cross that he lay back on his pillow, with his eyes shut and his lips pouting out, and would not speak a word. In vain Nelly tried to comfort him, or to interest him. He would not speak. Even Nelly's patience was nearly worn out. At last the door of their mother's room opened, and she came out in her warm red wrapper. "Why, you dear patient little children!" she exclaimed; "are you in bed yet? this is too bad. What does make your room so cold! Why, bless me!" she exclaimed, going to the register, "no heat is coming up here; what does this mean?" "I don't think Sarah has gone down yet: I've been awake a long time, mamma," said Nelly. "A thousand years, it is," exclaimed Rob, "or more, that we've been lying awake here waiting: Sarah's the meanest girl alive." "Hush, hush, Rob!" said Mrs. March. "Don't speak so. Perhaps she is ill. I will go and see. But you may have your presents on the bed;" and, going to the closet, she took down first the gray stocking, which was for Rob, and carried it and laid it on his bed. Then she carried the white one, and laid it on Nelly's bed.