most
remarkable discernment.

Christmas is a great festival at our house in a small way. Among the
many delightful customs we did not inherit from our Pilgrim Fathers,
there is none so pleasant as that of giving presents at this season.
It is the most exciting time of the year. No one is too rich to receive
something, and no one too poor to give a trifle. And in the act of
giving and receiving these tokens of regard, all the world is kin for
once, and brighter for this transient glow of generosity. Delightful
custom! Hard is the lot of childhood that knows nothing of the visits
of Kriss Kringle, or the stockings hung by the chimney at night; and
cheerless is any age that is not brightened by some Christmas gift,
however humble. What a mystery of preparation there is in the preceding
days, what planning and plottings of surprises! Polly and I keep up the
custom in our simple way, and great is the perplexity to express the
greatest amount of affection with a limited outlay. For the excellence
of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value. As we
stood by the window that night, we wondered what we should receive this
year, and indulged in I know not what little hypocrisies and deceptions.

I wish, said Polly, "that my uncle in India would send me a camel's-hair
shawl, or a string of pearls, each as big as the end of my thumb."

"Or a white cow, which would give golden milk, that would make butter
worth seventy-five cents a pound," I added, as we drew the curtains, and
turned to our chairs before the open fire.

It is our custom on every Christmas eve--as I believe I have somewhere
said, or if I have not, I say it again, as the member from Erin might
remark--to read one of Dickens's Christmas stories. And this night,
after punching the fire until it sent showers of sparks up the chimney,
I read the opening chapter of "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," in my best
manner, and handed the book to Polly to continue; for I do not so much
relish reading aloud the succeeding stories of Mr. Dickens's annual
budget, since he wrote them, as men go to war in these days, by
substitute. And Polly read on, in her melodious voice, which is almost
as pleasant to me as the Wasser-fluth of Schubert, which she often plays
at twilight; and I looked into the fire, unconsciously constructing
stories of my own out of the embers. And her voice still went on, in a
sort of running accompaniment to my airy or fiery fancies.

"Sleep?" sa