than ours, and that he was very poor,
so poor that he had no shoes, and had to go singing from house to
house for a few pennies to get some dinner. And he was _so_ hungry.

"Poor little boy!" said Tita. "Our mamma is away, and we're having a
pretty sad Christmas, but we'll try to make it nice for _you._"

So they played games, and Guido sang to them. Then the folding doors
rolled back, and there was the dining-room and the table all set, and
Thomas, the black waiter, smiling, just as if it had been a big dinner
party instead of two very little girls. Nurse said: "Well, I never!"
when she saw Guido, but she felt so sorry for the lonely little girls
that she let him come to the table. And _such_ a dinner as he ate! He
had never had one like it before. "It is a fairy tale," he said.

Just as dessert came on, the door opened and in rushed mamma and papa;
the train had gotten in, after all. They were so glad to see their
darlings happy instead of moping that they gave them each some extra
kisses. You may be sure little Guido never went hungry and barefoot
after that. Long afterward he would say: "That was a fairy Christmas!"

That night, after Tita had said her prayers, she said:

"Mamma, I know something. Whenever you feel sad and lonely, if you
will just find somebody sadder and lonelier than yourself and cheer
them up, it will make you all right."

And I think that that was the very best kind of a Christmas lesson of
love. Don't you?

ETHELDRED B. BARRY.

THE BALL GAME.

Did you ever know a boy
Make believe he had a toy?
That's the way
Babies play;
Babies who are young and small
Make believe they play at ball!

CHRISTMAS DAY.

"Boys," said Mrs. Howard one morning, looking up from a letter she was
reading, "I have had a letter from your grandmamma. She writes that
she is returning to England shortly."

The boys went on with their breakfast without showing any great amount
of interest in this piece of news, for they had never seen their
grandmother, and therefore could not very well be expected to show any
affection for her.

Now Mrs. Howard, the mother of two of the boys and aunt to the third
little fellow, was a widow and very poor, and often found it a hard
task to provide for her "three boys," as she called them, for, having
adopted her little orphan nephew, she always treated him as her own
son. She had sometimes thought it strange that old Mrs. Howard should