ent on, pulling at her
apron, and looking down, "an' gluin' it t' the bottle?"

"Not at all. But what shall I write?"

She flushed. "'Magic Egyptian Beautifier,' zur," she answered; "for I'm
thinkin' 'twould please little Sammy t' think that Sandy Claws left
something--for me--too."

* * * * *

If you think that the three little Jutts found nothing but bottles of
medicine in their stockings, when they got down-stairs on Christmas
morning, you are very much mistaken. Indeed, there was much more than
that--a great deal more than that. I will not tell you what it was; for
you might sniff, and say, "Huh! That's little enough!" But there _was_
more than medicine. No man--rich man, poor man, beggarman nor thief,
doctor, lawyer nor merchant chief--ever yet left a Hudson's Bay
Company's post, stared in the face by the chance of having to seek
hospitality of a Christmas Eve--no right-feeling man, I say, ever yet
left a Hudson's Bay Company's post, under such circumstances, without
putting something more than medicine in his pack. I chance to know, at
any rate, that upon this occasion Doctor Luke did not. And I know,
too--you may be interested to learn it--that as we floundered through
the deep snow, homeward bound, soon after dawn, the next day, he was
glad enough that he hadn't. No merry shouts came over the white miles
from the cottage of Jonas Jutt, though I am sure that they rang there
most heartily; but the doctor did not care: he shouted merrily enough
for himself, for he was very happy. And that's the way _you'd_ feel,
too, if you spent _your_ days hunting good deeds to do.

XXI

DOWN NORTH

When, in my father's house, that night, the Christmas revel was
over--when, last of all, in noisy glee, we had cleared the broad kitchen
floor for Sir Roger De Coverly, which we danced with the help of the
maids' two swains and Skipper Tommy Lovejoy and Jacky, who had come out
from the Lodge for the occasion (all being done to the tune of "Money
Musk," mercilessly wrung from an ancient accordion by Timmie
Lovejoy)--when, after that, we had all gathered before the great blaze
in the best room, we told no tales, such as we had planned to tell, but
soon fell to staring at the fire, each dreaming his own dreams.

* * * * *

It may be that my thoughts changed with the dying blaze--passing from
merry fancies to gray visions, trooping out of the recent weeks, of