Part 12 (2/2)
He paused, balancing his tray. ”Why are you going down? Won't you let me bring up yours when I've given this to Unc--to Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Gray?”
”Are you enjoying your task so well? Look out, keep your eye on the tray! There's nothing so treacherous to carry as cups so full as those.”
”Stop laughing at me and I'll get through all right. All I need is a little practice. Next time I come up I'm going to try balancing the whole thing on my hand and carrying it shoulder-high.”
”Please practice that some time when you're all alone in your own house.”
”I'll remember. And please remember I'm going to bring up your supper--and my own. May we have it in the place where we were after the dance?”
”Yes, with six others who are waiting there already. That will be lovely, thank you. I'll be back by the time you have everything up.”
”Of all the hard creatures to corner,” thought Richard, going on upward with his tray. ”Anyhow, I can have the satisfaction of waiting on her, which is better than nothing.”
He found it so. The six people in the gable corner proved to be of the younger boys and girls, and, though they were all eyes and ears for himself and Roberta, he had a sufficient sense of being paired off with the person he wanted to keep him contented. They ate and drank merrily enough, and the food upon his plate seemed to Richard the best he had ever tasted at an affair of the kind.
The evening was gone before he knew it. He could secure no more dances with Roberta, but he had one with Ruth, during which he made up for his silence with her sister by exchanging every comment possible during their exhilarating occupation. He began it himself:
”It's a real sorrow to me, Miss Ruth, to be warned that this party is nearly over.”
”Is it, Mr. Kendrick? It would be to me if to-morrow weren't Christmas Day. It's worth having this stop to get to that. You see, to-night we hang up our stockings.”
”Good heavens, Miss Ruth--where? Not in front of any one chimney?”
”No, each in our own room, at the foot of the bed. The things that won't go into the stockings are on the breakfast-table.”
”I'll think of you when I'm waking to my solitary dressing. I never hung up my stocking in my life.”
”You haven't!” Ruth's tone was all dismay. ”But you must have had heaps of Christmas presents?”
”Oh, yes, I've a friend or two who present me with all sorts of interesting articles I seldom find a use for. And when I was a little chap I remember they always had a tree for me.”
”I don't care much for trees,” Ruth confided. ”I like them better in shop windows than I do at home. But to hang up your stocking and then find it all stuffed and k.n.o.bby in the morning, with always something perfectly delightful in the toe for the very last! Oh, I love it!”
”I wish I were a cousin of yours, so I could look after that toe present myself,” said Richard daringly.
”You do miss a lot of fun, not having a jolly family Christmas like ours.”
”I'm convinced of it. See here, Miss Ruth, there's something I want you to do for me if you will. When you waken to-morrow morning send me--a Christmas thought. Will you? I'll be looking for it.”
Ruth drew back her head in order to look up into his face for an instant. ”A Christmas thought?” she repeated, surprised.
He nodded. ”As if I were a brother, you know, far away at the other side of the world--and lonely. I'll really be as far away from all your merry-making as if I were at the other side of the world, you see--and I'm not sure but I'll be as lonely.”
”Why, Mr. Kendrick! You--lonely! I can't believe it!” Ruth almost forgot to keep step in her surprise. ”But--of course, just you and your grandfather! Only--I've heard how popular--”
She paused, not venturing to tell him all she had heard of his gay and fas.h.i.+onable friends and how they were always inviting and pursuing him.
”Are you always lonely at Christmas?” she ended.
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