Laine followed the girl into the library, and as she held her hands to the blaze she motioned him to sit down. "I don't believe anybody in the world is as crazy about Christmas as Claudia. She gets the whole county on the jump, and to-morrow night everything in it will be here. Giving is all right, but Claudia takes it too far. The house needs painting, and a furnace would make it a different place, but she will do nothing until she has the money in the bank to pay for it; and yet she will give everybody within miles a Christmas present. When she took hold of things the place was dreadfully mortgaged, and she's paid off every dollar; but, for chance, stock-markets aren't in it with farming. Isn't that a pretty old desk? I could sell lots of this furniture for them and get big money for it, but I don't dare say so. They never talk money here. My room hasn't a piece of carpet on it, and one of those old Joshua Reynoldses in the hall would get so many things the house needs. I'm a Philistine, I guess, as well as a Philadelphian, and I like new things: plenty of bath-rooms and electric lights and steam heat. I don't blame them for not selling the old silver and china or the dining-room furniture, though it needs doing over pretty badly; but some of those old periwigged pictures I'd sell in a minute. Plenty of people would pay well for ancestors, and it's about all they've got down here. Hello, Claudia; we were just talking about you!" Claudia put down the armful of red roses she was carrying and began to fill a tall vase with them. "Did you say anything that wasn't nice?" She bit a piece of stem off. "If you did, it wasn't so." She turned to Laine. "You ought to see mother. She rarely has such flowers as you brought down--You have made her so happy. It was very good of you." "Good!" The girl from Philadelphia went out of the room. "If only--" In his eyes no longer was restraint, and Claudia turned her head as if listening to something outside. "I believe mother is calling me," she said. "Would you mind telling her, Mr. Laine, I am coming right away?" XIX CHRISTMAS Laine looked at his watch. Twenty minutes past twelve. Christmas was over. Two days after were over also, and in the morning most of the guests were going away. From the basket by the hearth he threw a fresh log on the smoldering fire, lifted it with his foot farther back on the hot ashes, drew the old-fashioned arm-chair closer to the fender, and, turning down the light from the lamp on the pie-crust table near the mantel, sat down and lighted a fresh cigar. It had been very beautiful, very wonderful, this Christmas in the country. Its memories would go with him through life, and yet he must go away and say no word of what he had meant to say to Claudia.