Tom and Bill, who had been at the show the evening before and exhausted the capabilities of the scenic effects, were quite ready to fall in with their father's view of the matter. The candles were burnt out, the play over, for them, and forthwith they assumed to look down on the whole with the contempt of superior intelligence. As for Dolly, she put her little tongue advisedly to the back of her sugar dog and found that he was very sweet indeed--a most tempting little animal. She even went so far as to nibble off a bit of the green ground he stood on--yet resolved heroically not to eat him at once, but to make him last as long as possible. She wrapped him tenderly in cotton and took him to the school with her, and when her confidential friend, Bessie Lewis, displayed her Christmas gifts, Dolly had something on her side to show, though she shook her curly head wisely and informed Bessie in strict confidence that there wasn't any such thing as Christmas, her papa had told her so--a heresy which Bessie forthwith reported when she went home at noon. "Poor little Presbyterian--and did she say so?" asked gentle old Grandmamma Lewis. "Well, dear, you mustn't blame her--she don't know any better. You bring the little thing in here to-night and I'll give her a Christmas cookey. I'm sorry for such children." And so, after school, Dolly went in to see dear old Madam Lewis, who sat in her rocking-chair in the front parlor, where the fire was snapping behind great tall brass andirons and all the pictures were overshadowed with boughs of spruce and pine. Dolly gazed about her with awe and wonder. Over one of the pictures was suspended a cross of green with flowers of white everlasting. "What is _that_ for?" asked Dolly, pointing solemnly with her little forefinger, and speaking under her breath. "Dear child, that is the picture of my poor boy who died--ever so many years ago. That is my cross--we have all one--to carry." Dolly did not half understand these words, but she saw tears in the gentle old lady's eyes and was afraid to ask more. She accepted thankfully and with her nicest and best executed courtesy a Christmas cookey representing a good-sized fish, with fins all spread and pink sugar-plums for eyes, and went home marveling yet more about this mystery of Christmas. As she was crossing the green to go home the Poganuc stage drove in, with Hiel seated on high, whipping up his horses to make them execute that grand _entrée_ which was the glory of his daily existence. Now that the stage was on runners, and slipped noiselessly over the smooth frozen plain, Hiel cracked his whip more energetically and shouted louder, first to one horse and then to another, to make up for the loss of the rattling wheels; and he generally had the satisfaction of seeing all the women rushing distractedly to doors and windows, and imagined them saying, "There's Hiel; the stage is in!"