Then the door opened and Johnetta reappeared on the sill with a look of angelic contrition.

“I hardly know what to say,” she said.  “Of course, I must admit I did rather forget myself.  It was at the last meeting of the Progressive Euchre Club and everybody was criticizing you for having solid gold prizes when they were at your house.  They said it was vulgar ostentation.  I didn’t say anything for the longest time, but finally when they all said your money had gone to your head, hadn’t it, I admit I did mumble, ‘It seems so.’  But it is only what everybody else says all the time, and I assure you I didn’t really mean it.  Of course nobody can behave just the same after they are a millionaire as they did before.  But I am awfully fond of you and—­and—­”

“It was most disloyal,” said Mrs. Budlong.  “And to think that after tearing me to pieces behind my back, you could come and call on me.”

It was a fine speech, but after she heard herself say it, Mrs. Budlong had a sinking feeling that if she herself had never called on anybody she had not criticized she would have stayed at home all her life.  But Johnetta Ackerley took another line.  She threw herself on Mrs. Budlong’s mercy, and if Mrs. Budlong boasted of anything more than another it was her mercy.

“I have just been at the church,” said Johnetta, “helping to decorate it for Christmas week, and I was hanging up a big motto ’Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men’ and I think it ought to apply to women, too.  I grovel in apology and I pray you to forgive me.  You can’t refuse your forgiveness when I implore it, can you?”

Mrs. Budlong wanted to but could not and the two women fell about each other’s throats and exchanged moan for moan.  As they were comfortably dabbing each other’s tears from their cheeks and sniffing their own and laughing cosily after the rain, Johnetta giggled and sobbed at once: 

“The idea of your thinking I didn’t just love you—­and me working my fingers to the bone making a Christmas present for you!”

X

A WELL-LAID PLAN

In the Civil War there were over two thousand battles and the details could not be reported in a lifetime.  But their result can be stated in a phrase.  The same brevity must apply to the campaigns, the stratagems, ballistics and tactics of Mrs. Budlong:  numberless efforts at secession ended as a lost cause.

There was one more desperate struggle.  While only a few days stood between her and her famous Christmas afternoons, she and her dour husband were having a bitter council of war.  She had another attack of inspiration.

“I have it! the very thing!  Why haven’t we thought of it before?  Quarantine!”

“Quarantine?” echoed Mr. Budlong as if the word were gibberish.

“Yes.  If we had something contagious in the house and a quarantine on, people couldn’t come here with their odious gifts and they would be so afraid to get ours that they’d be much obliged to us for not sending them any.”