nearly noon
But it had been such a happy day it was worth the fatigue . As she drove homeward in the sleigh , she slipped her hand out of her muff , and turned it in the moonlight to watch the sparkle of the new ring . She wondered if the two girls who had worn it in turn before her had had half as happy a fifteenth Christmas as she . IT was nearly noon when Lloyd wakened next morning . Her head ached , and she wondered dully how anybody could feel lively enough to sing as Aunt Cindy was doing , somewhere back in the servants ' quarters . The sound of a squeaking wheelbarrow had wakened her . Alec was trundling it around the house , with the parrot perched on it .