“It’s cold enough for skating, too,” she told herself, drawing her high-necked flannel night dress closer about her. The boys would clear some of the snow on Long Pond, or Hummock, as they did each year with the first snowfall, and that afternoon—She stopped, her breath quickening. “Why—why, it’s _Christmas morning_!” she exclaimed, astonished that she could have forgotten even for that brief, half-waking interval. “A white Christmas, just like Lilla Joy said it would be.” Her thoughts flew, by a natural kinship of ideas, from Christmas snow to Christmas trees and stockings. Every Christmas, as far back as she could remember, Erica had gathered up her unexplored and bulging stocking and an armful of packages, and gone across the garden to her cousins’ house, to have the added fun of sharing surprises with Tommy and Lis. This year there would be only Tommy to open bundles with, but—— She stopped abruptly for the second time since waking that morning, as memory gave her another little reminding nudge. The bright face clouded. There wouldn’t be only Tommy this morning. She had completely forgotten Milly and Barbee Thorne. “But I’m not going to start Christmas by taking silly dislikes and judging folks unkindly,” Erica decided, sturdily. “As Aunt Callie said last night, it’s not going to be a happy Christmas for Milly this year, without her mother.” She began to pull on her clothes rapidly, still shivering a little, for she was in far too much of a hurry to stop and light the fire which was laid on the broad hearth, ready at the touch of a match to send a comforting golden flame chimneyward. When she was dressed, she took her woolly red cape from the deep wardrobe and wrapped herself in it, drawing the gathered hood over her tumbled red curls. She looked, with her eager young head cocked alertly on one side, her bright eyes, and the red of her cloak, not unlike an energetic robin redbreast defying snow and cold, in search of an early breakfast worm. Downstairs she paused in the parlor long enough to admire anew the glistening tree she and Aunt Charity had dressed late last night, and then snatching the fat white stocking hanging from the blackened oak mantel, she tucked it under her cape, with one arm, and with her other retrieved an exciting pile of various sized packages laid out on the end of the sofa, where her particular share of Christmas was always put. The next moment she was out the side door, the sharp wind stinging fresh roses into her already glowing cheeks, and turning the tip of her straight little nose a matching pink.