"Well, they're killed and you eat them Christmas. They put a little one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when she was a little girl Mammy Malaprop always gave her some of the Christmas cake to bake in egg-shells. I wish I could see somebody make a cake. And Christmas Eve they make egg-nog, and Uncle Bushrod makes the apple toddy two weeks before." She turned to her uncle. "Why don't you go down there, Uncle Winthrop? I bet you'd get Christmas in your bones if you did." "I am very sure of it." Laine fixed Dorothea more firmly on his lap. "There is only one reason in the world why I don't go." "What's that? We're going away, and you will be all alone if you don't. Can't he come, Cousin Claudia? He'd love it. I know he would." "I don't." Claudia moved her chair farther from the firelight. "Christmas at Elmwood would be punishment for a city man. We are much too primitive and old-fashioned. He would prefer New York." "Would you?" Dorothea's arms were around her uncle's neck, and her head nodded at his. "Would you?" "I would not." Laine's voice was a little queer. "The punishment is all at this end. I would rather spend Christmas at Elmwood than anywhere on earth. But your Cousin Claudia will not let me, Dorothea." "Won't you really?" Dorothea slipped from his lap, and, with hands on the arms of Claudia's chair, gazed anxiously in her eyes. "He'll be all alone if you don't. Please ask him, Cousin Claudia! You said yourself there was always so much company at Elmwood that one more never mattered and you managed to put them somewhere. Please--oh, please ask him, Cousin Claudia!" Claudia kissed the lips held close to her own. "I think it is time for you to be in bed, Dorothea. You are making your uncle say things he doesn't mean. He can come to Elmwood if he wishes, but--" Dorothea sprang back and, with arms extended and fingers flipping, danced round and round the room. "How magnificent! Now I won't have a thing on my mind!" With a last whirl she jumped in Laine's lap and took his hands in hers. "That's the only thing I hated about Christmas, your being here all by yourself." She gave a deep breath. "And now you'll be in that heavenly place with Cousin Claudia. When I get big I'm going there and hunt by the light of the moon, and hear the darkies sing when they're having a party with possum and hoe-cake, and--" She sat upright. "Did you know Cousin Claudia was going home to-morrow?"