She dived into the pockets of her voluminous skirt. “Here we are, a bouncing dog with a chube at the end of it to squeeze. She can’t swallow it unless she swallows the dog too, and I don’t think she’ll do that. The _Story of the Three Bears_, warranted untearable, which it isn’t, for I tore up two in the shop with my own hands just to show the young man he didn’t know what he was talking about. A toy violing. She won’t be able to play on it, but the varnish won’t hurt her. A drum—well, it was really that drum which decided me to use one of my own stockings. My calves have grown whopping. In fact, I’ve often said jokingly to Mrs. Bugbird that I ought to call them cows nowadays. That’s the lot, I think. Well, I shan’t wake you in the morning till you ring. Just one tinkle will be enough. There’s no need to turn it round as if you was playing a barrel organ, which is what the fellow who played the villain in _His Life for Her_ did last November. He wound up all the wire somewhere inside the wall. A nice set out we had, and then he grumbled because I charged him in the bill for the work the plumber did to get it right again. Well, good night, and a merry Christmas.” When the sound of Mrs. Pottage’s hoarse whispering had departed, the little candlelit room glowed in the solemn hush of the great white world, of which it seemed to be the warm and beating heart. Mother and father bent low over the cot and listened to the faint breathing of Letizia, watching lovingly those dark tangled curls and red-rose cheeks. The father bent lower to touch them with his lips. “No, no, don’t kiss her, boy,” said the mother. “You might wake her, and she’ll be having such an exciting day to-morrow.” Nancy blew out the candle on the table by the bed, and slipped her silver key beneath Bram’s pillow. A shaft of moonlight pierced the drawn curtains and struck the canopy of Letizia’s cot. The radiance vanished as gathering snow-clouds obscured the face of the moon. Nancy fell asleep to the sound of Bram’s watch carrying on a fairy conversation amid the echoes of Mrs. Pottage’s absurd stories. CHAPTER IX A MERRY CHRISTMAS The snowy air had painted the ceiling of the room a lurid grey when Letizia woke her father and mother next morning. She was standing up in her cot, holding the footrails of the big bed with one hand and waving the toy dog in the other. “Look, muvver, look at my dog? I’ve got a dog, muvver! Look, faver, I’ve got a dog! Look, I say! Look, look!” Her parents had just focussed their sleepy eyes on the dog when it was flung on the floor, and the monkey was being waved in its place. “Look, muvver, I’ve got a monkey! And he’s climbing up and down. Look, faver, look at my monkey. Oh, do look!” The monkey’s triumph was brief, his degradation swift. The fickle mob had found another favourite.