He wondered at her steady bravery, at the gallant courage with which she was starting into the battle, her colors flying. A moment later, he wondered again, for Cicely played well. He had braced himself for the girlish, amateurish performance, had braced himself for the inevitable fibs he must tell, the specious promises he must make. Instead of that, as she ended a Dvorak dance, he contented himself with one short exclamation which was more eloquent than many words.

"Good!" he said, and Cicely was satisfied; but she only said,--

"Wait, and let me try once more."

She turned back to the piano and, after a random chord or two, she played the _Alan Breck Overture_, played it so well that even its creator was pleased, as he listened. Then she rose, shut the piano and crossed the room to the fireside.

"Mr. Barrett," she said, and her voice never betrayed the fact that this moment was the hardest she had ever known; "when you go back to New York, will you try to find me some little girls to teach? I'll do the best I can for them, and perhaps I can help along a little in making both ends meet."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The snow drifts were piled high about The Savins. The fences were buried, great heaps of snow lay on the broad east terrace and the path to the front door had become a species of tunnel. Christmas was close at hand and the earth, as if to make ready for the sweetest festival of the year, had wrapped itself in a thick, soft blanket, dazzling and pure as the stars shining in the eastern sky above.

Christmas was always a high day at The Savins. Ever since Theodora was a little child, the family tradition had been unbroken, the family rite unchanged. Around the Christmas basket and before the Christmas fire, the young McAlisters had gathered for their childish revels. Now, grown to manhood and womanhood, they still gathered there and, for one night in the year at least, they were children still, and their revel had lost none of its old charm.

"I am embarra.s.sed in my mind," Cicely said, one day just before Christmas. "Half my presents were bought before I was a pauper, half of them not till later. It makes it look as if I were partial; but I'm not. It's poverty not partiality that ails me, and you mustn't any of you care."

"Isn't Cicely wonderful?" Hubert said, when she had gone. "Her pluck is beyond anything I have ever seen. I didn't suppose she had it in her."

"I did," Allyn responded loyally. "There's more stuff to Cis than shows on the surface, and you never catch her crying over spilt milk."

Two hours later, however, he did find her in tears. She was alone in the house, and he discovered her in the library, her face buried in the sofa pillows.

"Oh, please don't tell," she sobbed. "I didn't suppose you would find me.

I don't mean to be a baby; but it is going to be so horrid to be poor and not have things, and I did want to give you something lovely for Christmas."

Allyn was a boy, and, boylike he was not p.r.o.ne to sentiment. He only said,--

"Don't worry your head about that, Cis. You've given me a good deal more than you know, this last year."

Surprised, she sat up and stared at him.

"Me? I? I've not given you a thing, Allyn, only those cuff b.u.t.tons, your birthday."

He looked at her steadily for a moment, Then he said,--

"Maybe not. I thought you had, though."

Suddenly Cicely understood him.

"There is no sort of sense in your going away, Cis," Billy said to her, as soon as he heard of her talk with Gifford Barrett. "Your Cousin Theodora and I both would be delighted to have you stay here for the present. The fact is, child, we shall miss you awfully, and can't stand it to have you go. You will stay with us; won't you?"

"I wish I could; but it wouldn't be fair. Papa needs me."

"You can't do any good, Cis. You're better off here."

"To live on you, and leave papa alone to stand things, the best way he can? That's not my way, Cousin Will."

"But if you can't help him?"

"I can. If I couldn't do anything else, I could make a little corner of home for him, and he will need it. He needs me. We have been together always, till just this last year when he had to go away, and now I'm not going to leave him to shift for himself."

"Do you know what you are undertaking, Cicely?" he asked her gravely.

"I think I do," she answered quite as gravely. "We shall have to go into a horrid little flat, somewhere in the wrong end of town, and pinch and scrimp to get along. I hate it, hate the very idea of it, and I wish I could stay here; but it is all out of the question. If papa ever needed the good of a daughter, it's now, and I must meet him when he lands. I must go, Cousin Will, so please don't make it any harder for me than it is anyway."

And Billy, as he watched her face and heard her words, forbore to urge, even though he dreaded for Cicely the future of which she spoke so bravely. The crash had been more disastrous and final than he had been led to suppose from the earlier reports. Both he and Theodora would have been only too glad to keep Cicely in their home; but they knew the girl was right, her place was with her father. Accordingly, they ceased to oppose; and only did their best to make the rest of her stay with them as happy as possible and to help her in her plans for her future home. Together with the McAlisters, they chose their Christmas gifts for her carefully, wisely, even merrily, for fun had a large share in Christmas at The Savins; but only Theodora knew that Billy had bought a small annuity for Cicely, and that the papers were to be given to her, not in the basket on Christmas eve, but when she was quite alone, on Christmas morning.

"I've a good deal more than we are likely to use," Billy had said rather apologetically, one night; "and even if it doesn't support her, it may as well help along a little. Cicely is a good girl, and I wish there were more like her."

And Theodora's a.s.sent was a hearty one.

"Phebe, how long is Mr. Barrett going to stay up here?" Theodora asked, a day or two before Christmas.

"I don't know."

"I thought he was going, to-morrow morning."

"Well, is he?"

"Probably not, inasmuch as I heard him ask you to go to drive with him, in the afternoon"

"Well, what difference does it make? He's free to stay at the hotel as long as he likes; isn't he?"

"Yes, if he doesn't starve in the meantime. But it seems to me it would be well to ask him here to Christmas dinner, if he is going to be in town."

"I wouldn't."

"Why not?" Theodora asked, in some surprise.

"Christmas is no day to ask strangers here."

"But Mr. Barrett isn't a stranger. Besides, he has been so good to Cicely that I think we owe him a little hospitality."

"You must do as you like, then," Phebe said curtly, and she marched away out of the room, leaving Theodora to knit her brows m anxious perplexity.

However, the next afternoon, the snow was falling heavily, and Phebe's drive was out of the question. At the appointed hour, she glanced out of the window to see Gifford Barrett wading up the path to the front door, and she vanished to her own room.

"Come in," she said, in answer to her mother's knock.

"Mr. Barrett is here, Phebe."

"Is he?"

"Yes, he has asked for you."