“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.