“Their father died more than two years ago,” Mrs. Folger wound up her explanation and introduction in one, “and Cousin Bernard here, being mate on a packet that sails out of New York next week, cannot, of course, take charge of Mildred and little Barbee. And Cousin Jane had asked him, before she died, to bring them to me. She knew her babies would be as welcome as my own.” “You mean,” Tommy asked, startled into unconsidered speech, “that they’re going to—to _live_ here, mother?” Even as the words escaped him he realized their inhospitable import, and bit his lip, coloring miserably. But—a strange girl in the house—that cunning baby, Barbee, didn’t count, of course—eternally underfoot, making a fellow stay constantly on his company behavior! The object of his uncomplimentary thoughts turned to stare at him around the back of her chair, her eyes looking enormously big and black in her white, sulky face, and the boy thought he saw in them a malicious enjoyment of his confusion. “Thank you, sir,” she said, clearly and too sweetly. “Yes, I believe Barbee and I _are_ going to live here. Your mother has very kindly asked us to stay.” The black eyes passed on to Erica, and stared at her with a keenness that seemed to miss no smallest detail of her appearance. “Do you live here, too?” the dark girl asked then, fretfully, tapping the toe of her black shoe on the brass andiron nearest her. “No, I live next door, with Aunt Charity,” Erica said, politely, feeling inwardly guilty because she was so glad she was not to live in the same house with this sulky, unattractive stranger. Feeling, too, tremendously sorry for poor Tommy, who had exchanged the daily companionship of Lis for Milly Thorne. She had a swift, dismayed vision of the change from the old, happy existence Lis, Tommy, and she had known, which the coming of Mildred and Barbee Thorne would mean. Then the sight of Milly’s black dress softened her to shamed remorse. “And here I was thinking about Tommy’s and my Christmas being spoiled,” she scolded herself, silently. “Erica Folger, you deserve just no Christmas at all!” CHAPTER V It was a white Christmas day, after all. During the night it had snowed hard and steadily, but the snow ceased just before dawn, and Nantucketers woke to a Christmas morning of blue skies and golden sunshine over a white-carpeted island. The two windows of Erica’s room faced toward the harbor below, and with the first slim fingers of sunlight poked in at all the small panes she was awake in her big mahogany bed with the pineapple posts. She lay there blinking drowsily at the light, until she noticed the thin rim of snow on the sill of her opened window. Then she sprang out of bed, shivering, for the room was bitterly cold, and pattered on bare feet across the wide, painted boards of the floor. Shutting the window energetically, she stood there a moment looking out on a new and shining white world.