ered
silverware.

"The boys! I don't see why your face should look so queer for them."

Mrs. Franklin glanced at Cynthia quickly.

"Come," said she, much to her daughter's relief, "we must go and welcome
Aunt Betsey."

The little old lady was as agile as ever. She had come for Christmas and
for the wedding, which was to take place on the twenty-sixth.

"I am glad you didn't put it off," she said to Edith when she had kissed
her and kissed Dennis, and patted them both on the shoulder. "Never put
off till to-morrow what can be done to-day, as I learned to my cost late
in life--though not so very late, either. And now I want to see the
wedding-presents."

And she trotted upstairs in front of them just as nimbly as she did
years ago, when she went up to show her nieces her new false front.

Jack arrived in the afternoon. He was a Sophomore at Harvard now--very
elegant in appearance, very superior as to knowledge of the world, but
underneath the same old Jack, good-natured, plodding, persevering. He
still ran the poultry farm, though he paid a man to look after it while
he was away.

The day wore on, night came down upon them, and still Neal did not
appear. He was to have left Philadelphia that morning, where he had been
living during the past four years. He had grown more accustomed to the
confinement of business, he had made a number of friends outside of the
Quaker element, and he expected Philadelphia to be his permanent home.

His cousin was apparently satisfied with his success, for Neal had risen
steadily since the beginning, and would one day be a partner. He had
come home to Oakleigh every summer for two weeks' vacation, but he had
not spent the Christmas holidays there since the year that his sister
was married.

This Christmas eve, Cynthia, in her prettiest gown, donned for the
occasion, grew visibly more and more impatient, in which feeling her
step-mother shared. Mr. Franklin laughed at them as he sat by the lamp
reading the evening paper as usual.

"Watching won't bring him," he said when they opened the front door a
crack for the twentieth time and then shut it hastily because of the
snow that blew in; "and in the mean time you're freezing me!"

"Papa, how can you be so prosaic as to read a stupid old newspaper
Christmas eve?" cried Cynthia, as she caught the paper out of his hand,
tossed it aside, and seated herself on his knee.

"Seems to me my little daughter looks very nice to-night," he sa