m.

"Then let's have a waltz!" he cried, coming up with outstretched
hands.

"Too soon after dinner," she laughed.

"No, it's a good time!" he twinkled gravely.

She hesitated, considering him with doubt on her face.

"Don't you trust him!" called Mrs. Randolph. "He is longing to
waltz you under the mistletoe!"

He strode across to his wife.

"How dare you blacken my reputation in the face of all these
ladies!" he cried sternly.

She laughed up at him with fearless, roguish eyes.

"Have I suggested anything that was not in your mind to do?"

A burst of laughter assailed him, while he walked off
muttering,--quite audibly,--"These women! these women!"

The jingling of sleighbells set the keener-eared of the guests to
listening.

"Polly wouldn't come in a sleigh, would she?" queried one.

"They're stopping here!" announced Miss Castlevaine from a front
window. "But it isn't Polly," she added, "it's--goodness!--it's
Santa Claus!"

"Santa Claus!" echoed the roomful. And regardless of mistletoe,
there was a rush across to the windows, while Nelson Randolph went
to welcome his guests.

In they came, the strange little party of six, and were presented
to the company as Santa Claus and Madam Santa Claus and four of the
little Santa Clauses.

"Who can they be?" whispered Miss Mullaly to her neighbor.

"More'n I know," returned Mrs. Crump. "I guess Polly's one of 'em,
but which!"

Santa Claus was the same rotund, pudgy old fellow--with the long
white beard and the laughing face--that children love, and on his
broad back was the proverbial pack of presents. His wife, in fur
from head to foot, wore a frilled fur cap, and, safely hidden
behind her spectacled, rosy-cheeked mask, looked the veritable
mother of all the little Santa Clauses attributed to her. The
children stood silently by in their picturesque costumes, looking
round the room, as children will, while their father and mother
conversed with the host and hostess.

Finally they were all seated, and Madam Santa Claus began in quite
a motherly way to talk about her children.

"It's Polly Dudley," whispered Mrs. Tenney to Mrs. Prindle. "I
know her voice. And I'm pretty sure that little one is Doodles.
Don't they look funny?"

They were all clad in red and white. The girls wore scarlet frocks
reaching almost to the floor, with short white fur coats, and caps
to match. The boys had long red trousers, and coats like those of
their sisters.