"Indeed,
I think the mercury rose a little while you were looking at it."
"Oh no," he said, laughing, "even you could not make it rise to-night.
Heigho, Ned! coming to kiss good-night? I say, Ned, tell us what mamma
has for Amy's stocking. What a good joke it is, to be sure I We all had
the impression you were a little girl, you know, and selected our gifts
accordingly. Burt actually bought you a doll. Ha! ha! ha! Maggie had
planned to have you hang up your stocking with the children, and such a
lot of little traps and sweets she has for you!"
The boy, to whom going to bed at the usual hour was a heavy cross on this
momentous evening, promptly availed himself of a chance for delay by
climbing on Amy's lap, and going into a voluble inventory of the contents
of a drawer into which he had obtained several surreptitious peeps. His
effort to tell an interminable story that he might sit up longer, the
droll havoc he made with his English, and the naming of the toys that
were destined for the supposed child, evoked an unforced merriment which
banished the last vestige of restraint.
"Well, I'm glad it has all happened so," said Amy, after the little
fellow had reluctantly come to the end of his facts and his invention
also. "You make me feel as if I had known you for years--almost,
indeed, as if I had come to you as a little girl, and had grown up among
you. Come, Ned, it shall all turn out just as you expected.
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