w England for
two centuries and a half. And many and many a New Englander, still in
middle life, remembers that in childhood, though nurtured in Christian
homes, he could not have told, if he were asked, on what day of the
year Christmas fell. But as New England, in the advance of the world,
has come into the general life of the world, she has shown no inaptitude
for the greater enjoyments of life; and, with the true catholicity of
her great Congregational system, her people and her churches seize, one
after another, all the noble traditions of the loftiest memories. And so
in this matter we have in hand; it happened that the Roots, in their
hillside home, had determined that they would celebrate Christmas, as
never had Roots done before since Josiah Root landed at Salem, from the
"Hercules," with other Kentish people, in 1635. Abner and Gershom had
cut and trimmed a pretty fir-balsam from the edge of the Hotchkiss
clearing; and it was now in the best parlor. Grace, with Mary Bickford,
her firm ally and other self, had gilded nuts, and rubbed lady apples,
and strung popped corn; and the tree had been dressed in secret, the
youngsters all locked and warned out from the room. The choicest turkeys
of the drove, and the tenderest geese from the herd, and the plumpest
fowls from the barnyard, had been sacrificed on consecrated altars. And
all this was but as accompaniment and side illustration of the great
glory of the celebration, which was, that Huldah, after her two years'
absence,--Huldah was to come home.

And now she had not come,--nay, was not coming!

As they sat down at their Barmecide feast, how wretched the assemblage
of unrivalled dainties seemed! John Root handed to his wife their
daughter's letter; she read it, and gave it to Grace, who read it, and
gave it to her grandmother. No one read it aloud. To read aloud in such
trials is not the custom of New England.

Boston, Dec. 24, 1848.

DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--It is dreadful to disappoint you all,
but I cannot come. I am all ready, and this goes by the carriage
that was to take me to the cars. But our dear little Horace has
just been brought home, I am afraid, dying; but we cannot tell,
and I cannot leave him. You know there is really no one who can
do what I can. He was riding on his pony. First the pony came
home alone; and, in five minutes after, two policemen brought
the dear child in a carriage. His poor mother is