`` Let us do the thing up the very best way we can , '' said Nellie , forgetting even her beloved chocolates in her eagerness . `` The shops are open yet . Let us go up town and invest . '' Five minutes later five capped and jacketed figures were scurrying up the street in the frosty , starlit December dusk . Miss Allen in her cold little room heard their gay voices and sighed . She was crying by herself in the dark . It was Christmas for everybody but her , she thought drearily . In an hour the girls came back with their purchases . `` Now , let 's hold a council of war , '' said Jean jubilantly . `` I had n't the faintest idea what Miss Allen would like so I just guessed wildly . I got her a lace handkerchief and a big bottle of perfume and a painted photograph frame -- and I 'll stick my own photo in it for fun . That was really all I could afford . Christmas purchases have left my purse dreadfully lean . '' `` I got her a glove-box and a pin tray , '' said Belle , `` and Olive got her a calendar and Whittier 's poems . And besides we are going to give her half of that big plummy fruit cake Mother sent us from home . I 'm sure she has n't tasted anything so delicious for years , for fruit cakes do n't grow on Chestnut Terrace and she never goes anywhere else for a meal . '' Beth had bought a pretty cup and saucer and said she meant to give one of her pretty water-colours too . Nellie , true to her reputation , had invested in a big box of chocolate creams , a gorgeously striped candy cane , a bag of oranges , and a brilliant lampshade of rose-coloured crepe paper to top off with . `` It makes such a lot of show for the money , '' she explained . `` I am bankrupt , like Jean . ''
`` Well , we 've got a lot of pretty things , '' said Jean XXXXX a tone of satisfaction .
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