The Christmas idea seemed to strike the
whole town at once. Mrs. Budlong became the victim of her own
classic device of pretending to let slip a secret. The townswomen
shamelessly turned her own formula against her.
Mrs. Detwiller met her at church and said:
"Yesterday morning at eleven I had the most curious presentiment, my
dear. I remember the hour so exactly because I've been making it a
rule to begin work on your Christmas present every morning at-- Oh,
but I didn't inTend to let you know. No, dearie, I won't tell you
what it is. But I can't help believing it's Just what you'll need in
New York."
Myra Eppley, with whom Mrs. Budlong had never exchanged Christmas
presents, at all, but with whom an intimacy had sprung up since Mrs.
Budlong came into the reputation of her money--Myra Eppley had the
effrontery to call up on the telephone and say:
"Would you mind telling me, my dear, the shade of wall paper you're
going to have in your New York parlor, because I'm making you the
daintiest little--well, no matter, but will you tell me?"
Poor Mrs. Budlong almost swooned from the telephone. She did not
know what the color of her wall paper would be in New York. She did
not know that she would ever have wall paper in New York. She only
knew that Myra Eppley, too, was calling her "my dear." Myra Eppley
also was going to give her a Christmas present.
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