“Oh, muvver, look at my baa-lamb. I’ve got a little baa-lamb, faver. Look at my pretty little woolly baa-lamb, faver,” she shouted imperiously. But the lamb immediately followed his colleagues to the floor. “And I’ve got a rub-a-dub-dub and a wheedle-wheedle and an apple and an orange. And I saw Santy Claus come down the chiminy, and had a most anormous beard you ever saw and he said, ‘How d’ye do, Tizia, will you give me a nice kiss?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’ and he gived me a kiss, and he put fousands and fousands of lovely fings into my stocking. Wasn’t Mrs. Porridge kind to give me her stocking because it was so anormous? And please can I come and get into bed with you and bring my trumpet?” “Come along, darling,” invited Nancy, holding out her arms. Letizia climbed very cautiously out of her cot and was lifted up on the bed and deposited between her father and mother, where she sat and blew her trumpet without a stop until her father picked up his pillow and pretended to smother her. “Hullo,” Bram exclaimed, looking at the little box which was thus uncovered. “Here’s something of mother’s under father’s pillow.” Nancy smiled and shook her head. “No, boy, that’s yours.” Bram smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s yours. I put it under your pillow last night.” “But, Bram, I put it under yours.” By this time Letizia had disentangled herself from the pillow and was sounding another tucket, so that she had to be smothered all over again with Nancy’s pillow. And there was revealed another little box exactly like the first. “Open it, muvver. Oh, do open it!” Letizia urged. “Perhaps there’s choc-chocs inside.” “Strange,” Bram exclaimed. “What’s inside mine, I wonder?” Nancy and he opened the two boxes. In each one was a silver key. “Bram!” “Nancy!” “_This is the key of my heart. Keep it always, my darling_,” he read in an awed voice. “_With this key you unlocked my heart_,” she read in equal awe. They wished each other a merry Christmas, and with their eyes they vowed eternal love, those unlocked hearts too full for words, while Letizia blew such a resounding alarum on her trumpet that she fetched up Mrs. Pottage. “Well now, fancy that! I heard her right downstairs in the kitchen. Well, it’s real Christmas weather, and no mistake. Good morning, my beauty, and how are you?” This to Letizia. “Mrs. Porridge, Santy Claus brought me a dog and a lamb and a monkey and a rub-a-dub-dub and a wheedle-wheedle and a trumpet and a book and an orange and an apple and some sweeties and fousands of fings. And he came down the chiminy, and I wasn’t a bit frightened.” Mrs. Pottage shook her head in delighted admiration. “Did he come down head first or feet first?” “Bofe,” Letizia declared, after a moment’s pause. “You can’t catch her out, can you? Why, she’s as cunning as King Pharaoh,” Mrs. Pottage chuckled, and with this she departed to fetch the morning tea. Nancy was suddenly seized with a desire to go to Mass and take Letizia.