"He's as nervous as a witch.

I can't keep him still a minute!" "How about his mother ?" hinted Bertram, with a faint smile.
Billy laughed.
"Well, I'm afraid she isn't exactly calm herself," she confessed, as she hurried out of the room with her parcels.
Bertram looked after her longingly, despondently.
"I wonder what she'd say if she--knew," he muttered.

"But she sha'n't know--till she just has to," he vowed suddenly, under his breath, striding into the hall for his hat and coat.
Never had the Strata known such a Christmas as this was planned to be.
Cyril, Marie, and the twins were to be there, also Kate, her husband and three children, Paul, Egbert, and little Kate, from the West.

On Christmas Day there was to be a big family dinner, with Aunt Hannah down from the Annex.

Then, in concession to the extreme youth of the young host and his twin cousins, there was to be an afternoon tree.