She was awakened by a loud _thump!_ that seemed to shake the very bed
in which she was lying; and as she sprang up in a state of great
excitement, she saw Santa Klaus picking himself up from the hearthrug
on which he had apparently fallen with great violence.
"Oh dear!" cried Marianne, "I hope you are not hurt? How careless of
the Chintz Imp to throw you down like that!"
"It was no one's fault but my own," said Santa Klaus as he dusted the
remains of soot and plaster off his brown cloak. "I should have
remembered my experience with your great-aunt, but I knew how much you
wanted that paint-box," and he slipped into Marianne's stocking a
japanned box with a whole sheaf of paint brushes.
"Oh, thank you, Santa Klaus! You can't think how I've wished for it;
my own is such a horrid little thing. And those beautiful pictures for
my scrap-book, and the things for the doll's house--and I _really_
believe that's the book of fairy tales I've been longing for for
months!"
Marianne's face shone with delighted expectation as she opened the top
of her stocking and peeped in.
"Not till the morning," cried Santa Klaus; "you know my rule," and
patting Marianne on the head, he disappeared, with his sack much
lightened, up the chimney.
"Oh, do come here!" cried Marianne to the Chintz Imp. "I must talk to
somebody."
"I think you certainly _ought_ to talk to me," said the Chintz Imp,
coming carefully down the brickwork, hand over hand, and laying the
knife down in the fender. "Without me you wouldn't have had a single
present."
