"Because I don't like the uncertainty of the thing. Uncertainty always
bothers me, and this is a more than ordinary case."
"But how could the boys spring their surprise without coming to
Hollyhill?" her father asked.
"That's just it," she returned with a quick glance of suspicion toward
both her father and her mother. "Do you know, I found myself wondering
several times if Clifford wouldn't bring some of those boys down here
some time during the holidays."
Mr. Stanlock laughed, but he would have given a good deal to be able
to recall the noise he made. It was really a noise, as he must have
admitted himself, and so hollow as to indicate something decidedly
unlike spontaneous amusement.
Marion caught herself in a brown study several times over these
circumstances and her father's manner before she went to sleep that
night.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XI.
A MAN OF BIG HEART AND QUEER NOTIONS.
Christmas was a big event at Hollyhill. Hollyhill was well named.
Perhaps some old patriarch a century or two back conceived the
inspiration of the name while playing Santa Claus with the little tots
of the household and pretending to have slid down the chimney without
getting a speck of soot on his bulging vestments.
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