The sunshine grew suddenly brighter to Tabitha, her heart grew wonderfully lighter, her lips unconsciously hummed a little tune and the walk the rest of the way to town was beautiful. But the first thing she did when Ivy Hall was reached, was to run up to her room, select the prettiest of the three left-over calendars, wrap it daintily in tissue paper and gold cord and address it to her father at Silver Bow. Then with a happy sigh she dropped it back into the box to await the proper time for mailing, and skipped off to tell Madame that her Christmas work was all done. CHAPTER XVII HOLIDAY PLANS "Girls, girls!" cried Jessie Wayne, bursting unannounced into Bertha Peck's room where ten or twelve of her mates were feverishly at work on Christmas mysteries, anxious to have everything complete before the morrow saw them scattered in their many homes for their holiday vacation. "Just listen to this. Mamma is going to give me a party Christmas Eve, and there are a hundred invitations sent out. Isn't that gorgeous? The parties mamma gives are simply fine; almost everyone we invite comes. I wish we lived here in this city so I could have all of you. And New Years Day she is going to take six of us over to Pasadena in the auto to see the Tournament of the Roses and the chariot races. I have often been there, we go every year, but it is lots more fun with a crowd of people your own age. One day we are going up Mt. Lowe, and another day if it is warm enough she has promised to take us to one of the beaches for bathing, I just love the ocean. Isn't my vacation going to be dandy?" "I should think it is," exclaimed Chrystobel. "That's what I like--plenty of excitement. I tried to coax mamma to let me spend the holidays with my cousins in San Francisco, but she said to wait until next summer when she and papa could go, too. I don't know what they are planning for this Christmas, but I expect to have a jolly time." "So do I," piped up the spoiled Cassandra, who could not be bribed or forced to stay away from these secret sewing bees, though she never pretended to do anything but pry. "We are going to San Diego to grandma's house for Christmas, and there is to be a real evergreen tree and loads of presents. I'm going to get a gold watch. I know, 'cause I teased mamma until she said she would buy me one." "We have a family reunion at Redlands," said active Julia Moore. "There will be forty of us in all. Won't we have a merry time? I have two cousins whose birthdays are in the same week with mine, and folks call us the triplets, though Jack is a year older than I and Fred is a year younger. They are the greatest teases, always playing jokes on me; so I have fixed up these two turkey wishbones to get even with them this year. Do you suppose they can find anything worse-looking to give me?" She held up two grotesque figures of wishbone and wax, dressed like Dutch boys in baggy trousers and queer caps, and the girls shouted derisively.