But
I'll try. I'd ten times rather have this than a new book. It's
one of his own, don't you see--one that he has read a hundred
times and loved and made a friend of. A new book, just out of a
shop, wouldn't be the same thing at all. It wouldn't MEAN
anything. I consider it a great compliment that he has given me
this book. I'm prouder of it than of anything else I've got."
"Well, you're welcome to it," said Felicity. "I don't understand
and I don't want to. I wouldn't give anybody a Christmas present
that wasn't new, and I wouldn't thank anybody who gave me one."
Peter was in the seventh heaven because Felicity had given him a
present--and, moreover, one that she had made herself. It was a
bookmark of perforated cardboard, with a gorgeous red and yellow
worsted goblet worked on it, and below, in green letters, the
solemn warning, "Touch Not The Cup." As Peter was not addicted to
habits of intemperance, not even to looking on dandelion wine when
it was pale yellow, we did not exactly see why Felicity should
have selected such a device. But Peter was perfectly satisfied,
so nobody cast any blight on his happiness by carping criticism.
Later on Felicity told me she had worked the bookmark for him
because his father used to drink before he ran away.
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