Then he helped her fill the stockings, his own fingers carefully giving
the crowning effect of orange and cornucopia in each one, and arranging
the large packages below, after tiptoeing down the stairs with them so
as not to wake the officially sleeping children, who were patently stark
awake, thrashing or coughing in their little beds. The sturdy George had
never been known to sleep on Christmas Eve, always coming down the next
day esthetically pale and with abnormally large eyes, to the feast of
rapture.
On this Saturday--Christmas Eve's eve--when Langshaw finally reached
home, laden with all the "last things" and the impossible packages of
tortuous shapes left by fond relatives at his office for the
children--one pocket of his overcoat weighted with the love-box of
really good candy for Clytie--it was evident as soon as he opened the
hall door that something unusual was going on upstairs. Wild shrieks of
"It's father! It's father!" rent the air.
"It's father!"
"Fardie! Fardie, don't come up!"
"Father, don't come up!"
"Father, it's your present!"
There was hasty scurrying of feet, racing to and fro, and further
shrieks.
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