Miss Hyle’s blue eyes shot a sudden flash at Betty that made her whole severe face light up.  “I’ve never had a chance to learn—­at home there never is any ice—­but I have always been athletic.”

“Where is your home, Miss Hyle?” asked Betty.

“Cawnpore, India.”

“India?” gasped Eleanor.  “How delightful!  Oh, won’t you tell us about it, Miss Hyle?”

So it was that Miss Hyle found herself talking about something besides triangles to girls who really wanted to hear, and so it was that the flash came often into her eyes.

“I have had a happy morning, thank you, Betty—­and all.”  She said it very simply, yet a quick throb of pity and liking beat in Betty’s heart.

“How stupid we are about judging people!” she thought.  Yet Betty had always prided herself on her character-reading.

“Hurrah, the mail and express are in!” The girls ran excitedly to their rooms.

Betty alone went to hers without interest.  “Why, Hilma, what’s happened?”

The little round-faced Swedish maid mopped the big tears with her duster, and choked out: 

“Nothings, ma’am!”

“Of course there is!  You’re crying like everything.”

Hilma wept aloud.  “Christmas Day it is, and mine family and mine friends have party, now, all day.”

“Where?”

Hilma jerked her head toward the window.

“Oh, you mean in town?  Why can’t you go?”

“I work.  And never before am I from home Christmas day.”

Betty shivered.  “Never before am I from home Christmas day,” she whispered.

She went close to the girl, very tall and slim and bright beside the dumpy, flaxen Hilma.

“What work do you do?”

“The cook, he cooks the dinner and the supper; I put it on and wait it on the young ladies and wash the dishes.  The others all are gone.”

Betty laughed suddenly.  “Hilma, go put on your best clothes, quick, and go down to your party.  I’m going to do your work.”

Hilma’s eyes rounded with amazement.  “The cook, he be mad.”

“No, he won’t.  He won’t care whether it’s Hilma or Betty, if things get done all right.  I know how to wait on table and wash dishes.  There’s no housekeeper here to object.  Run along, Hilma; be back by nine o’clock—­and—­Merry Christmas!”

Hilma’s face beamed through her tears.  She was speechless with joy, but she seized Betty’s slim brown hand and kissed it loudly.

“What larks!” “Is it a joke?” “Betty, you’re the handsomest butler!”

Betty, in a white shirt-waist suit, a jolly red bow pinned on her white apron, and a little cap cocked on her dark hair, waved them to their seats at the holly-decked table.

“Merry Christmas!  Merry Christmas!”

“Nobody is ill, Betty?” Rosamond asked, anxiously.

“If I had three guesses, I should use every one that our maid wanted to go into town for the day, and Betty took her place.”  It was Miss Hyle’s calm voice.