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smaller clumps bad been tacked flat 
against doors leading inward. The 
girls pouted the least bit over such ar¬ 
rangement, but the Major, twinkling 
although pretending to be stern, bade 
them remember the time and place, 
and the sacredness of old customs. 
In his heart he knew they were glad 
rather than angry. 
Nancy hated marble pedestals ex¬ 
cept upon occasion. Mary March 
made it plain to her this was an oc¬ 
casion. So two slenderly graceful 
white pillars, lugged down from the 
garret, were set in the hall’s remotest corners and crowned with 
tall, narrow-necked, copper-luster pitchers, which in turn were 
filled with shadow bouquets. That is to say, pressed ferns, fluffy 
milk-weed, plumy golden rod, still faintly aureate, trails of 
feathery clematis — most of all tall, round-headed stalks of the un¬ 
romantic pye-weed, its pinky-purple transformed to the most 
delicate silver-lilac. Each and several these things showed 
marvelously against the dark wood, and by contrast with the red 
and green. Nancy looked at every thing, happy enough to cry, 
saying, however, loftily to Tex and her own maid Andalusia — 
Andy for short — “Hustle down the rugs—quick — and take out 
everything that doesn’t belong. After that — well! 1 don’t care 
how soon the company begins coming.” 
“O! Ho! We are not company!” the girls and boys protested 
in chorus. Nancy looked them over scornfully. “Company? 
You!” she said, shaking her head; “Why! You are hardly even 
trundle-bed trash.” Then relenting, “But I will say it for you— 
I’d rather have you than all the company a train could bring." 
Nancy does things so handsomely! We forgive her!” Roger, 
the eldest Talbot, said, in pretending aside to Susan. Mary March 
shook her fist at him, saying severely, “A nice mess you’ll make of 
it a n—philandering this time of the day—with the dining-room 
unfinished, and the parlor and library not touched.” 
“Oh, let’s leave the parlor nice and clean, not mess it up with 
Christmas things.” Diana pleaded, "Somehow I feel we ought — 
anyway, it’s too beautiful for anything but real flowers." 
“I believe you are right, honey, Nancy said, her head a little 
aside, “the dining-room won’t take long. Just stick up dried 
things and holly and mistletoe, and pine tassels wherever you can 
—it’s all roped and ready — and I've heaps of sword ferns and a 
lot of young geraniums for the window boxes. No! Hyacinths 
wouldn't suit there,” as she saw a question in Mary’s eyes. “Too 
smelly — the scent rather takes your appetite. Make the room look 
cheerful—that’s all that’s necessary.” 
“So say all of us!” William Talbot, the Major’s namesake, an¬ 
nounced sepulchrally. Then with a giggle, “Nobody can think of 
anything else, when they have the chance to see and smell and 
taste a Nancy Christmas dinner." 
“Shut up!” Nancy said, cuffing him lightly. “But don’t you 
agree with me — the best possible decoration there, is something- 
good on the plates? That’s what the dining-room’s for.” 
“I more than agree 
— I approve,” William 
declared, his hand on 
his heart, holding open 
the door which led in- 
Jo the dining-room. 
As Susan shot through 
it, he glanced signifi¬ 
cantly at the mistletoe 
above it, murmuring 
under breath, “All 
things come to him who waits, but 
the waiting is — simply awful.” 
“Is this go-as-you-please, and free- 
for-all ?” Roger said, surveying the 
big room whose plenishings, like the 
house, were the result of accretion, 
yet kept terms with each other in a 
fine friendly fashion. Perhaps be¬ 
cause they had room—the corner 
cupboard had no need to swear at the 
Jackson press; it stood at least 
twenty feet away, across the room. 
And tall as the press towered, vain¬ 
glorious in its diamond panes, it did 
not in the least patronize the rather stubby sideboard, between 
the west windows, even though it was not mahogany. Nancy kept 
the sideboard proudly — it was one of the first things cabinet- 
made west of the Blue Ridge. At Christmases only, she dressed 
it out in the home-spun linen covers with deep netted fringe, that 
had come down along with it from that early time. The thick 
white of them threw up dazzlingly old silver and Sheffield plate. 
Mary March quickly made the wainscot above a gorgeous mat of 
bitter-sweet, its berries scarcely shrunken through Nancy’s fore¬ 
thought in cutting off leaves when she set it to dry. 
Underneath it, centering the sideboard, Great Grandmother 
Talbot's copper-luster bowl held fringy dark red chrysan¬ 
themums, and many sword ferns. The fall had been so mild 
the flowers had hardly needed protection. Masses of yellow and 
white ones decked the mantel, but could not put out of court its 
glory of tall brass candlesticks. The cupboard top had a bow- 
pot of red-berried branches — swamp dogwood, upland dogwood, 
a little holly, and very many tall stalks of rose hips. What with 
the cheerful growthy red and green in the narrow boxes at each 
of the four windows, the sprigs of holly and mistletoes, the pine 
tassels scattered about, the dining-room had no need to be envious 
of the hall, even though it had had no set scheme of dercoration. 
Surprise waited on the decorators in the library — whose name 
was not strictly deserved, albeit the one tall bookcase held the 
cream of English literature. It had rag rugs, many splint-bot¬ 
tomed chairs, great grandfather Talbot's walnut desk, a low 
lounge with a gay patchwork cover, a rack of guns and fishing 
rods, and a few old prints in black frames. The Major stood 
with his back to the door, making a pretense of studying the 
blindest of them, but really chuckling. He knew the others ex¬ 
pected to find only the rope line in place — behold! by help of 
his favorite Wyeth, youngest of his nephews, he had banked the 
mantel with greenery, and trailed over it vivid partridge vines, 
wax-green of leaf, coral of berry, fresh because still on their own 
roots. Elsewhere was a brass umbrella-stand filled with white 
chrysanthemums, red berries, and trails of cat-brier; this was set 
in the only dull corner. Wyeth was still busy, tacking cross-vine 
about the print frames. He it was who waved back the invaders, 
saying in Mary March’s own manner, “Get out of the picture — be¬ 
fore you spoil it.” But it was Talbot against Talbot. Roger 
walked in boldly, holding a sheet of cardboard in front of him, 
and saying, “You behave! That stuff won’t do for the Family 
Hero,” looking reverently up at the only portrait — a tall young 
man in a gray private’s uniform. “Nancy says so — Nancy who 
must be obeyed,” he went on. “She never forgets him—nor lets 
us either.” 
As he spoke he had been detaching from the cardboard a 
wreath of clematis in seed, fluffy, feathery, silvery beyond words. 
It was shaped to fit the picture accurately — the twisting of a 
few fine wires held it firmly in place. 
“Only thing fit for a Man in Gray,” Mary March said, decisively, 
(Continued on page 407 ) 
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