s like us!"

Mr. Mack came forward and pointed with the end of his pipe over our
heads, saying:

"Up on the sofa with you! Up on the sofa with you, all three!"

So there we sat, as if we were distinguished guests, with the lamp
shining full upon us.

"I see you have a _tine_ with you," said Mr. Mack, looking at the _tine_
I carried. "Have you something to sell, perhaps? And where may these
pretty little ladies be from?"

"I-pi sell-pell butter-putter," said I.

"We are from the Land of Fantasy," said Massa, without attempting
P-speech again.

"Why! They don't make butter in the Land of Fantasy, do they?" asked
Mrs. Mack.

Just then the servant came in with an immense tray, and on it was
something very different from Mrs. Berg's camphorated cookies, I assure
you! I thought with grief of my mask mouth no bigger than a savings-bank
slit.

"And now what about unmasking?" said Mr. Mack. "That is, if these ladies
from the Land of Fantasy are willing to liven up an evening for a couple
of old people."

Were _willing_! We took our masks off in a jiffy. But, would you believe
it? Mr. Mack said he knew me the very minute we came in!

Mrs. Mack took a glass of Christmas mead and recited:

"Oh! I remember the happy ways
Of my gay and innocent childhood days.
And I love to feel that my old heart swells,
With the same pure joy that in childhood dwells."

"Mamma composed that herself," said Mr. Mack, gazing admiringly at his
wife.

Later in the evening, Mrs. Mack danced the minuet for us, holding up her
skirt and singing in a delicate old-lady voice. Then she said:

"Do you remember, Mack? Do you remember that they were playing that air
the evening you asked me to marry you?"

"_Do_ I _remember_?" And Mr. Mack and his wife beamed tenderly at each
other.

"Think! That such a homely woman as I should get married!" said Mrs.
Mack to us on the sofa.

"You homely!" and Mr. Mack gave the dear old lady a kiss right on the
mouth.

"Now we shall see, children, whether, when you get old, you have done
like Mack and me. We have danced a minuet our whole life through, and
the memories of youth have been our music."

When we went home at the end of the evening, we had our pockets crammed
full of apples and nuts and cakes.

It is jolly fun to go out mumming at Christmas! Just try it!

CHAPTER IX

MOTHER BRITA'S GRANDCHILD

It was an afternoon in the spring. There had been a heavy fall of sn