“Oh!”—­a wail went up from Millicent.  “You’ve taken one!—­You didn’t wait.”  Then her voice changed to a motherly admonition, and she began to interfere.  “This is the way to do it, look!  Let me help you.”

But Marjory drew back with resentment.

“Don’t, Millicent!—­Don’t!” came the childish cry.  But Millicent’s fingers itched.

At length Marjory had got out her treasure—­a little silvery bell with a glass top hanging inside.  The bell was made of frail glassy substance, light as air.

“Oh, the bell!” rang out Millicent’s clanging voice.  “The bell!  It’s my bell.  My bell!  It’s mine!  Don’t break it, Marjory.  Don’t break it, will you?”

Marjory was shaking the bell against her ear.  But it was dumb, it made no sound.

“You’ll break it, I know you will.—­You’ll break it.  Give it me—­” cried Millicent, and she began to take away the bell.  Marjory set up an expostulation.

“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.