_Maggie_: "It's Mr. Fountain's sisters just telephoned up."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Have them come up at once, Maggie, of course." As
Maggie goes out: "Another interruption! If it's going to keep on like
this! Shouldn't you have thought they might have _sent_ their
presents?"
_Fountain_: "I thought something like it in Frank's case; but I didn't
say it."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "And I don't know why _I_ say it, now. It's because
I'm so tired I don't know what I _am_ saying. Do forgive me! It's this
terrible Christmas spirit that gets into me. But now you'll see how
nice I can be to them." At a tap on the door: "Come in! Come in!
Don't mind our being in all this mess. So darling of you to come! You
can help cheer Clarence up; you know his Christmas Eve dumps." She
runs to them and clasps them in her arms with several half-open
packages dangling from her hands and contrasting their disarray with
the neatness of their silk-ribboned and tissue-papered parcels which
their embrace makes meet at her back. "Minnie! Aggie! To lug here,
when you ought to be at home in bed dying of fatigue! But it's just
like you, both of you. Did you ever see anything like the stores
to-day? Do sit down, or swoon on the floor, or anything. Let me have
those wretched bundles which are simply killing you." She looks at the
different packages. "'For Benny from Grandpa.' 'For a good girl, from
Susy's grandmother.' 'Jim, from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Aggie.' 'Lucy,
with love from Aggie and Minnie.' And Clarence! What hearts you _have_
got! Well, I always say there never were such thoughtful girls, and
you always show such taste and such originality. I long to get at the
things." She keeps fingering the large bundle marked with her
husband's name. "Not--not--a--"
_Minnie_: "Yes, a bath-robe. Unless you give him a cigar-case it's
about the only thing you can give a man."
_Aggie_: "Minnie thought of it and I chose it. Blue, because it's his
color. Try it on, Clarence, and if it's too long--"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, do, dear! Let's see you with it on." While the
girls are fussily opening the robe, she manages to push her brother's
gift behind the door. Then, without looking round at her husband. "It
isn't a bit too long. Just the very--" Looking: "Well, it can easily
be taken up at the hem. I can do it to-morrow." She abandons him to
his awkward isolation while she chatters on with his sisters. "Sit
down; I insist! Don't think of going. Did you see that frightful pack
of people when the cab horse fell down in front of Shumaker's?"
_Minnie_: "See it?"
_Aggie_: "We were in the midst of it! I wonder we ever got out alive.
It's enough to make you wish never to see another Christmas as long as
you live."
_Minnie_: "A great many _won't_ live. There will be more grippe, and
more pneumonia, and more appendicitis from those jams of people in the
stores!"
_Aggie_: "The germs must have been swarming."
_Fountain_: "Lucy was black with them when we got home."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Don't pay the slightest attention to him, girls.
He'll probably be the first to sneeze himself."
_Minnie_: "I don't know about sneezing. I shall only be too glad if I
don't have nervous prostration from it."
_Aggie_: "I'm glad we got our motor-car just in time. Any one that
goes in the trolleys now will take their life in their hand." The
girls rise and move toward the door. "Well, we must go on now. We're
making a regular round; you can't trust the delivery wagons at a time
like this. Good-by. Merry Christmas to the children. They're fast
asleep by this time, I suppose."
_Minnie_: "I only wish _I_ was!"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "I believe you, Minnie. Good-by. Good night. Good
night, Aggie. Clarence, go to the elevator with them! Or no, he can't
in that ridiculous bath-gown!" Turning to Fountain as the door closes:
"Now I've done it."
V