She had stayed all night with the Butterfields—which had not been unalloyed joy; for, though they obviously tried to be kind to her, yet they could not help showing that they regarded her sudden appearance among them, dinnerless and moneyless, as most extraordinary, and certainly very upsetting to the equanimity¹ of a well-ordered household.

 

In the morning she went back to Sunbridge. At the house she found Miss Chick ill. Her cold, and her fright over Genevieve, had sent her into a high fever; and Mrs. Kennedy was scarcely less ill herself.

 

Certainly it was not exactly a cheerful Christmas Day for the one whose heedlessness had brought it all about. But Genevieve mourned so bitterly, and blamed herself so strongly, that at last, out of sheer pity, Mrs. Kennedy, and even Miss Jane Chick, had to turn comforter; for—as Mrs. Kennedy reminded her sister—it was, after all, aside from her thoughtless lack of haste, only Genevieve's unselfish forgetfulness of her own possible wants that led to the whole thing. Then, and not until then, did Genevieve bestow² some attention upon her Christmas presents, of which there were a generous number.

 

Fortunately no one outside the house had known of Genevieve's nonappearance that Christmas Eve, so she was spared any curious questions and interested comments from others of the Happy Hexagons.

 

The short Christmas vacation sped rapidly. The young people spent much of it on the river, skating, when the ice was good. Genevieve, it is true, was not often seen there. Genevieve was playing nurse these days, and so devotedly³ attentive⁴ to Miss Jane Chick was she, that both the ladies had almost to scold her, in order to make her take needed exercise. Even Harold Day reproached her one morning, when he met her coming from the post-office.

 

"You don't let any of us see anything of you—not anything," he complained. "And you look as if you were doing penance⁵, or something—you've got such a superior expression!"

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