“LET HER ALONE,” said the father.
Millicent let go as if she had been stung, but still her brassy, impudent voice persisted:
“She'll break it. She'll break it. It's mine—”
“You undo another,” said the mother, politic.
Millicent began with hasty, itching fingers to unclose another package.
“Aw—aw Mother, my peacock—aw, my peacock, my green peacock!” Lavishly she hovered over a sinuous greenish bird, with wings and tail of spun glass, pearly, and body of deep electric green.
“It's mine—my green peacock! It's mine, because Marjory's had one wing off, and mine hadn't. My green peacock that I love! I love it!” She swung it softly from the little ring on its back. Then she went to her mother.
“Look, Mother, isn't it a beauty?”
“Mind the ring doesn't come out,” said her mother. “Yes, it's lovely!” The girl passed on to her father.
“Look, Father, don't you love it!”
“Love it?” he re-echoed, ironical over the word love.
She stood for some moments, trying to force his attention. Then she went back to her place.
Marjory had brought forth a golden apple, red on one cheek, rather garish.
“Oh!” exclaimed Millicent feverishly, instantly seized with desire for what she had not got, indifferent to what she had. Her eye ran quickly over the packages. She took one.
“Now!” she exclaimed loudly, to attract attention. “Now! What's this?—What's this? What will this beauty be?”
With finicky fingers she removed the newspaper. Marjory watched her wide-eyed. Millicent was self-important.
“The blue ball!” she cried in a climax of rapture. “I've got THE BLUE BALL.”
She held it gloating in the cup of her hands. It was a little globe of hardened glass, of a magnificent full dark blue color. She rose and went to her father.
“It was your blue ball, wasn't it, father?”
“Yes.”
“And you had it when you were a little boy, and now I have it when I'm a little girl.”
“Ay,” he replied drily.
“And it's never been broken all those years.”
“No, not yet.”
“And perhaps it never will be broken.” To this she received no answer.
“Won't it break?” she persisted. “Can't you break it?”
“Yes, if you hit it with a hammer,” he said.
“Aw!” she cried. “I don't mean that. I mean if you just drop it. It won't break if you drop it, will it?”
“I dare say it won't.”
“But WILL it?”
“I sh'd think not.”
“Should I try?”
She proceeded gingerly to let the blue ball drop, it bounced dully on the floor-covering.
“Oh-h-h!” she cried, catching it up. “I love it.”
“Let ME drop it,” cried Marjory, and there was a performance of admonition and demonstration from the elder sister.
But Millicent must go further. She became excited.
“It won't break,” she said, “even if you toss it up in the air.”
She flung it up, it fell safely. But her father's brow knitted slightly. She tossed it wildly: it fell with a little splashing explosion: it had smashed. It had fallen on the sharp edge of the tiles that protruded under the fender.
“NOW what have you done!” cried the mother.
The child stood with her lip between her teeth, a look, half, of pure misery and dismay, half of satisfaction, on her pretty sharp face.
“She wanted to break it,” said the father.
“No, she didn't! What do you say that for!” said the mother. And Millicent burst into a flood of tears.
He rose to look at the fragments that lay splashed on the floor.
“You must mind the bits,” he said, “and pick 'em all up.”
He took one of the pieces to examine it. It was fine and thin and hard, lined with pure silver, brilliant. He looked at it closely. So—this was what it was. And this was the end of it. He felt the curious soft explosion of its breaking still in his ears. He threw his piece in the fire.
“Pick all the bits up,” he said. “Give over! give over! Don't cry any more.” The good-natured tone of his voice quieted the child, as he intended it should.
He went away into the back kitchen to wash himself. As he was bending his head over the sink before the little mirror, lathering to shave, there came from outside the dissonant voices of boys, pouring out the dregs of carol-singing.
“While Shep-ep-ep-ep-herds watched—”
He held his soapy brush suspended for a minute. They called this singing! His mind flitted back to early carol music. Then again he heard the vocal violence outside.
“Aren't you off there!” he called out, in masculine menace. The noise stopped, there was a scuffle. But the feet returned and the voices resumed. Almost immediately the door opened, boys were heard muttering among themselves. Millicent had given them a penny. Feet scraped on the yard, then went thudding along the side of the house, to the street.
To Aaron Sisson, this was home, this was Christmas: the unspeakably familiar. The war over, nothing was changed. Yet everything changed. The scullery in which he stood was painted green, quite fresh, very clean, the floor was red tiles. The wash-copper of red bricks was very red, the mangle with its put-up board was white-scrubbed, the American oil-cloth on the table had a gay pattern, there was a warm fire, the water in the boiler hissed faintly. And in front of him, beneath him as he leaned forward shaving, a drop of water fell with strange, incalculable rhythm from the bright brass tap into the white enamelled bowl, which was now half full of pure, quivering water. The war was over, and everything just the same. The acute familiarity of this house, which he had built for his marriage twelve years ago, the changeless pleasantness of it all seemed unthinkable. It prevented his thinking.
When he went into the middle room to comb his hair he found the Christmas tree sparkling, his wife was making pastry at the table, the baby was sitting up propped in cushions.
“Father,” said Millicent, approaching him with a flat blue-and-white
