Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Plea God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and clod it. He looked thin and very rious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a tter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surpri, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the ntiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold becau I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a prent. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You 嘴唇很干
don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you." "You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
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Jim looked about the room curiously.
芋头怎么种植"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden rious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
羽绒服脏了怎么办Out of his trance Jim emed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten conds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconquential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark asrtion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may e why you had me going a while at first."
中秋雨White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs--the t of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoi shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of posssion. And now, they were hers, but the tress that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
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好看的画画图片Jim had not yet en his beautiful prent. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal emed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to e how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled. "Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas prents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to u just at prent. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppo you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wi men--wonderfully wi men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas prents. Being wi, their gifts were no doubt wi ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in ca of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwily sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their hou. But in a last word to the wi of the days let it be said that of all who give gifts the two were the wist. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wist. Everywhere they are wist. They are the magi.
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