"The Christmas Waits came and sang under my window. I could see them from my bed. The leader carried a torch so the others could see to read their books. He had on a red cloak. And they sang such beautiful carols!"

"Oh, why didn't they come out and sing to us?" said Alice.

"You are pretty far out of town. I think they only sang to sick people and old people. They went up to the hospital, and they asked father for a list of his patients who were not too sick to be disturbed by the singing."

"Well, anyway, I'd rather have been well than to have heard the carols,"

said Peggy. "You poor dear, I can't get over your being in bed on Christmas Day."

But Diana's eyes were shining. "I shouldn't have had Tom's poem if I had been well," she said, "or the Christmas egg. Even if one is sick, Christmas is the happiest time in all the year."

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT STORM

That was a winter of great storms. They began in November, and the snow piled up higher and higher, so that when one went down to the shops, one walked between walls of snow. The oldest inhabitant remembered nothing like it.

"It seems like going up mountains," Peggy said to Alice, one day when they came to a house where the sidewalk had not been shoveled out.

It was a wonderful winter for children, for such coasting and tobogganing had never been known. It was not such a good winter for creatures who wore fur and feathers. Lady Janet, who had never known any other winter and did not realize that the oldest inhabitant had not known one like it, would return from an encounter with the snowflakes in dazed wonder and take her seat on a chair in front of the kitchen stove, or she would patiently watch by a mouse-hole for hours together.

The inhabitants of Hotel Hennery took life placidly, although they were confined to the hotel. But, having nothing more interesting to do, they turned their attention to laying eggs; after January set in, they all began to lay, so that Mrs. Owen and the children each had a fresh egg for breakfast most of the time.

The snow-storms grew more and more frequent as the winter pa.s.sed, and the snow was deeper and deeper. It was all great fun for Alice and Peggy. They never tired of the coasting and the walk to and from school.

It was hard for Diana, however, for in stormy or very cold weather she had to stay in the house. She was so much better after the summer that, in the autumn, she began to go to school. Diana was in the same room with Peggy, in the cla.s.s below her. She had to be out of school almost half the time.

"I wouldn't mind being out of school," said Alice. "Think of having no lessons to get and staying in that lovely room with a wood fire on the hearth, and everybody coming to see you."

"You wouldn't like it a bit if you didn't feel well," said Peggy. "Think of not being able to go coasting."

The children went to see Diana almost every day, and there did not seem to be any room quite so pleasant as Diana's room, with the fire on the hearth and the blooming flowers.

Diana was often well enough to be downstairs in the parlor, and this was a pleasant room, too. It seemed strange to the children to think it was their own old parlor, for it was so differently arranged. There was a large piano at which Diana practiced when she was well enough. It took up the side of the room where their mother's writing-desk had been.

Their piano was an upright one, and it had been on the opposite side of the room. Small as it was, it almost filled up one side of their tiny parlor now. It had been used very little since it had gone to its new surroundings, for there was no longer any money for music-lessons, and Mrs. Owen had been too busy to touch it; besides, she had never played a great deal, except the accompaniments for her husband's singing. So the piano was resting. But Mrs. Owen had determined that, just as soon as she had got ahead a little, the children should have their music-lessons again.

Alice's birthday came in February, and when her mother asked her what she would like best, in the way of a celebration, she did not hesitate a minute.

"I should like to have Diana come the night before and spend the whole day."

"Don't you want any one else?"

"No one else," said Alice, "except you and Peggy, of course. I never have played dolls all I wanted to, because Peggy doesn't like to play, and so, on my birthday, I'd like to have just a feast of dolls, from morning until night."

"But there will be your school," said her mother. "I couldn't let you skip that."

"Couldn't you? I thought perhaps you could."

"No, I couldn't. I think it would be better if Diana came to dinner and for the afternoon."

"No," said Alice, "the night is the best part. Peggy can sleep in the spare room, and we can have our dolls sleep with us, and the next day, Diana can rest while I go to school."

It seemed a pretty good plan--Alice's plans were usually reasonable. The only doubt was, whether Diana would be well enough to make the little visit. But she was well enough, and her father drove her down in his sleigh, all bundled up in many wraps. Diana had on a brown cap made of beaver fur that almost matched her golden-brown hair. And over this, to make sure she did not take cold, was a thick, brown veil. Wrapped around her shoulders and pinned with a large gilt pin, in the shape of a feather, was a warm, green-and-blue plaid shawl. Under this was her own brown coat, and under that, a blue sweater. Peggy undid her wraps and pulled off her blue mittens.

They had a fire in the parlor because Diana was coming, and they gave Diana the small company chair that their grandmother used to sit in when she was a little girl.

While Peggy was busy getting Diana out of her wraps, Alice was taking off the wraps of her namesake Alice, and those of Peggy Owen Carter, for Diana had been asked to bring these two with her. The dolls were wrapped up in the same way their little mother was, only they wore hoods instead of fur caps, and they did not have sweaters under their coats. But they were carefully wrapped up in Turkish towels, instead of shawls.

"I hope my children have not taken cold," said Diana. "Peggy is rather delicate."

"I won't have a delicate namesake," said Peggy. "She can't be delicate if she is named for me."

No sooner had Peggy said it than she noticed a shadow on Diana's bright face, and she remembered that Diana was delicate. One never thought of her as an invalid, for she was always so cheerful.

"I think it is nice for people to be delicate," Peggy hastened to add, "but not for dolls. If a doll is delicate, she might get broken."

"Our dolls are people," Alice said, "aren't they, Diana?"

"Certainly," said Diana. "They are just as much people as the Rhode Island Reds are."

"Indeed, they are not," said Peggy. "My darling Rhode Island Reds are alive."

"Your Rhode Island Reds could be killed and eaten," said Alice. "n.o.body would eat a doll any more than they would a person. And they look like people, and the Rhode Island Reds don't."

It was hard for Peggy to have Alice and Diana sleep together without wanting her. It was the first time in her life that she had not slept with Alice the night before her birthday. In fact, the only times she could remember their being separated at night was when Alice had the measles, and one other time, when she herself had gone for a short visit to her grandmother with her father. And the worst of it was, there was plenty of room for three in the wide bed, if it were not for the room those ridiculous dolls took up. Diana was her intimate friend just as much as she was Alice's. Indeed, even more, because they liked to read the same books and to write stories. Diana was nearer her age than Alice's; and yet, Alice liked to have these stupid dolls sleep with her better than her own flesh-and-blood sister!

Mrs. Owen noticed that Peggy looked very sober at supper time, and, while she was helping with the dishes, she said, "What is my little girl looking unhappy about?"

"Do I look unhappy, mother?"

"Yes, what is the trouble?"

Then Peggy told her the whole story.

"Now, Peggy, let's sit right down and see what we can do about it," said Mrs. Owen. "You are jealous because Alice wants Diana all to herself. It is very natural, but it is not a nice feeling."

"I am not jealous of Diana," said Peggy; "but I just can't stand having Alice like to play with dolls better than to play with me. I could tell them fairy-stories, and see things on the wall."

"But that is no treat for Alice. You can do that any night. What she wants is somebody who likes to play dolls just as much as she does. It is Alice's birthday we are celebrating, not yours. When your birthday comes, you can have Diana all to yourself, if you like, for the night."

"But I'd always rather have Alice, too--always, always," said Peggy.

"But if you were fond of dolls, and Alice had been saying impolite things about them, you might find it pleasanter to have Diana all to yourself. I suspect you have been saying some not very kind things about Alice's family."

"I said Belle looked as if she had smallpox," Peggy owned, "and so she does. I said Sally Waters's feet were so small she could put them in her mouth."

"Do you think those remarks were very kind?"