About the dinner Mrs. Orbit's words were as good a description as could be found: it should have been framed and hung upon the wall to admire--and it tasted as good or better than it looked. But the hours in the parlor afterwards, when, the dishes done and the kitchen left spick and span, they all retired there, were scarcely less enjoyable. There was such a roaring fire. . . .
They ate nuts and apples. Mrs. Orbit brought out a brown paper sack of chocolate drops which she passed around. . . . She picked up her mandolin from the corner where it was leaning against the wall with a red ribbon about its neck like a petted dog, and had it in her lap and was plinking and planking the tunes of "Willie, We Have Missed You," "Murmur, Gentle Lyre," "Then You'll Remember Me," "Alice, Where Art Thou?" "Polly Wolly Doodle," "We Three Kings of Orient Are," "I Traced Her Little Footprints in the Snow" and other songs too numerous to mention, while all joined in and sang. In the yellow lamplight, in and among the dancing red firelight they sang and talked and laughed and played games. It was a Christmas scene to be drawn by hand, by an artist, to illustrate a book about yuletide. Even the four little angels, once pathetic and ridiculous in their costumes, skipping around in cold and chaos with their draperies held up, or stumbling over them, were now idoneous and relevant, real Christmas angels, settled on the roses of the ingrain like doves upon a bower.
When it was time to go, Rosabella had her inning. She didn't need any help from anybody. She knew her piece as Joseph Smith knew his pieces from the Lord. All the guests had their coats on and were ready to go; they were only milling around and the adults were saying a last word to each other. Mamma didn't even have to give her the high sign. She ran four or five steps up the steep staircase. Mamma held the lamp up high and cast its beams upon her. She hitched up her robe and her wings fluttered. Then she recited gloriously:
Dear friends, good night, the day is o'er,
The happy Christmas is no more.
We hope you have enjoyed yourselfs and had a happy time
Here in our house in this snowy clime.
Good wishes go with you out through the door,
She pointed first to the guests and then to it, significantly,
GOODNIGHTDEARFRIENDSTHEDAYISO'ER!
"It could be printed in the papers," Linnea declared. "Honestly to goodness, if it couldn't."
--From The Peaceable Kingdom
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