hour hand slowly moved.
We put our noses into the kitchen now and then, to smell the cakes
and get warm, and anon we hung about the parlour door, and were most
unjustly accused of trying to peep. What did we care what our mother
was doing in the parlour?--we who had seen Old Father Christmas
himself, and were expecting him back again every moment!

"At last the church clock struck. The sounds boomed heavily through
the frost, and Patty thought there were four of them. Then, after due
choking and whirring, our own clock struck, and we counted the strokes
quite clearly--one! two! three! four! Then we got Kitty's shawl once
more, and stole out into the back-yard. We ran to our old place, and
peeped, but could see nothing.

"'We'd better get up on to the wall,' I said; and with some difficulty
and distress from rubbing her bare knees against the cold stones, and
getting the snow up her sleeves, Patty got on the coping of the little
wall. I was just struggling after her, when something warm and
something cold coming suddenly against the bare calves of my legs,
made me shriek with fright. I came down 'with a run,' and bruised my
knees, my elbows, and my chin; and the snow that hadn't gone up
Patty's sleeves, went down my neck. Then I found that the cold thing
was a dog's nose, and the warm thing was his tongue; and Patty cried
from her post of observation, 'It's Father Christmas's dog, and he's
licking your legs.'

"It really was the dirty little brown and white spaniel; and he
persisted in licking me, and jumping on me, and making curious little
noises, that must have meant something if one had known his language.
I was rather harassed at the moment. My legs were sore, I was a little
afraid of the dog, and Patty was very much afraid of sitting on the
wall without me.

"'You won't fall,' I said to her. 'Get down, will you!' I said to the
dog.

"'Humpty Dumpty fell off a wall,' said Patty.

"'Bow! wow!' said the dog.

"I pulled Patty down, and the dog tried to pull me down; but when my
little sister was on her feet, to my relief, he transferred his
attentions to her. When he had jumped at her, and licked her several
times, he turned round and ran away.

"'He's gone,' said I; 'I'm so glad.'

"But even as I spoke he was back again, crouching at Patty's feet, and
glaring at her with eyes the colour of his ears.

"Now Patty was very fond of animals, and when the dog looked at her
she looked at the dog, and then she