ortheast
wind still blew, but fresh and cool from the sea, and hardly a cloud
floated in the sky. We drove often out to the open beach where the
surf came in gloriously, and the great mountain island of Sibullian,
away to the north, hung half cloud, half land in the sky.

Christmas was near at hand, and we began to think of turkey and
other essentials. Presents to home folk had to be mailed early in
November, and after that an apathy came on us. Thanks to Mrs. C----,
the energetic wife of a military man of private fortune, Christmas
was destined to wear, after all, an Anglo-Saxon hue.

The Filipinos do not understand Santa Claus or the Christmas Tree. The
giving of presents is by no means a universal custom of theirs,
and such as are given are given on the festival of _Tres Reyes_, or
The Three Kings, some six or eight days after Christmas. Mrs. C----
decided to give a Christmas festival to certain Filipino children,
and she actually managed to disinter, from the Chinese shops, a box
of tiny candles, and the little devices for fastening them to the
tree. No Christmas pine could be found, but she got a lemon tree,
glossy of foliage. With the candles and strings of popcorn and colored
paper flowers, this was converted into quite the natural article. She
invited several of us to dinner on Christmas Eve, and we went early
to see the celebration.

By half-past six o'clock, when the tropical dusk had closed down, the
little guests began to arrive, each in charge of a servant. There were
twenty-five twinkling, berry-eyed babelets with their satiny black down
hanging like bangs over their eyes, and their tubby little stomachs
covered with fine garments and bound about with gorgeous sashes. They
squatted on their little heels and sucked their little thumbs, and
waited in wondering patience for this strange mystery to occur. As many
American children would have made the air noisy for a block around.

The windows of the house were thrown wide open, and the sliding doors
which pull back all around the base boards were open too, so that
the whole interior was visible from the street below. There a great
crowd had gathered, men, women, and children, beggars, and many of
the elder brothers and sisters of the favored guests within. Nearly
every child was displaying a toy that seems to be the special evidence
of Christmas in the Philippines--some sort of animal made of tissue
paper and mounted on wheels. It is lighted within like a