"Look up, Celie!" ordered Jeremiah. Cecilia looked up. Strung across the hall was an elaborate electric sign. The words were made of blue, yellow and red globes. She read: "Welcome to our Darling!!!" Cecilia gasped. Then she turned to her father. "It is beautiful," she said, "and just what I wanted." She stopped and swallowed with difficulty. Then added, "Papa dear, I love you so!" Johnny smiled. He raised his eyebrows and his shoulders. Then he sniffed. He thought he smelled the scent of roses. CHAPTER VII SANTA CLAUS Father McGowan, holding a cassock high about his black-clad legs, stood in the back yard of the rectory grounds. The back yard looked like those photographs entitled, "Rude shelters for the soldiers," or "Huts built by the South Australian Light Horse Brigade." All over the brown lawn were small shacks. Some of them made of brick, some of old and weather-beaten boards, and some of these two with a smattering of very ex and sticky roofing mixed in. Father McGowan smiled. Mrs. Fry looked out of the window. Her lips tightened. A small boy emerged from one of these affairs. Emerged on his stomach, wiggling out. "Father McGowan," he yelled, "we got a secret passage!" "No!" said Father McGowan enthusiastically, "No!" Another door opened. Another boy came wiggling forth. "We got a secret place to hide things in, in ours!" he said in a sing-song, mine-is-better-than-yours tone. "Aw——!" said the first disparagingly. Father McGowan laughed. A boy came swaggering across the lawn. He whistled, "In My Harem." He touched his hat to the priest. "I'm going to get a case of pop," he said loudly, "an' drink it here. Mom, she gimme a candle, and Pop sez I can stay out 'til nine." After this he was instantly the centre of an awed and admiring group. Mrs. Fry opened the door. "The 'phone wants yuh," she said shortly to Father McGowan. Father McGowan went in with evident reluctance. He wanted to hear more of the case of pop, which he knew would narrow down to two bottles. After he'd passed through the kitchen, Mrs. Fry spoke again to her sister who sat steaming by the stove. "He's like that," she said, a great love, yet vast
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