Two days before Christmas Delight came out. There was an afternoon
reception at the rectory, and the plain old house blossomed with the
debutante's bouquets and baskets of flowers.

For weeks before the house had been getting ready. The rector,
looking about for his accustomed chair, had been told it was at the
upholsterer's, or had found his beloved and ragged old books relegated
to dark corners of the bookcases. There were always stepladders on the
landings, and paper-hangers waiting until a man got out of bed in the
morning. And once he put his ecclesiastical heel in a pail of varnish,
and slid down an entire staircase, to the great imperilment of his
kindly old soul.

But he had consented without demur to the coming-out party, and he had
taken, during all the morning of the great day, a most mundane interest
in the boxes of flowers that came in every few minutes. He stood inside
a window, under pretense of having no place to sit down, and called out
regularly, "Six more coming, mother! And a boy with three ringing across the
street. I think he's made a mistake. Yes, he has. He's coming over!"

When all the stands and tables were overflowing, the bouquets were hung
to the curtains in the windows. And Delight, taking a last survey, from
the doorway, expressed her satisfaction.

"It's heavenly," she said. "Imagine all those flowers for me. It
looks"--she squinted up her eyes critically--"it looks precisely like a
highly successful funeral."