istmas Lucy came to her mother with a request. "Just
one thing, mother! And it isn't more presents--the Good Will tree hangs
full!"

"Well, then, what is it, Lucy?" asked Mrs. Van Buren.

Little Lucy laughed. "A Chinese Santa Claus, mother! Think what a Santa
Claus Sky-High would make in his flowing robes of black, yellow, and
white all sprinkled over with silver and gold! Nearly all the gifts are
Chinese, you know--all but ours for him. Just remember how he looked
last summer on Sunday afternoons when the birds flew down to admire
him!"

Yes, the birds seemed to have felt a curiosity about the little Chinaman
when he went out into the garden with the children after Sunday luncheon;
for sometimes, on that day, he used to put on garments so splendid that
he did not like to show himself above stairs or on the street, and the
birds came out of the trees to take a peep at him. One of these garments
was a frock of silk covered with golden dragons, lotus-flowers, and
gilded fringes; and with it he wore a golden butterfly with jeweled
wings on his rimless cap.

Even Mr. Van Buren had wondered where a servant obtained such a
glittering robe! One day he described the wardrobe of his house-boy
to the consul. "Is everything all right?" he asked.

The consul laughed. "You don't know China!" he said. "Probably the old
Manchurian mandarin had a fancy for decking out the boy!"

Nora's eyes used to double in size when she saw him in silk and gold and
silver, with the jeweled butterfly waving above his narrow black eyes.
"There's not the loikes on this planet," she would say. "I would think
he'd stepped off a star and landed here! Queen Victory never looked the
aqual of that little hathen varmit!"

It was agreed that Sky-High should be made the Santa Claus of the
Christmas party. He promised to appear in his dragon robe, though he
said it was never worn in public excepting on vice-royal occasions.

"Sky-High, did you ever see a vice-royal occasion?" asked Lucy,
wondering what the double word meant.

"Yea, my little Lady of the Lotus," answered the house-boy. "And once
I was present on a royal occasion in Pekin. The Son of Heaven appeared
that day in all his splendor."

"You waited on your mandarin?" asked Lucy.

"I attended upon my mandarin--yes?" Little Sky-High burst forth into the
forbidden "flowery language." "It was in the Purple City. Barbarians
cannot understand; but in our court, in the Inner City, in the ancient
P