your time for a
month before Christmas to buy a few paltry presents, and all of it for
two months afterward to get over buying them!"

"But, Jasper, they are n't few, and they're anything but paltry.
Imagine giving Uncle Harold a _paltry_ present!" retorted Edith, with
some spirit.

The man waved an impatient hand.

"Very well, we will call them magnificent, then," he conceded. "But
even in that case, surely the countless stores full of beautiful and
useful articles, and with a list properly tabulated, and a sufficiency
of money--" An expressive gesture finished his sentence.

The woman shook her head.

"I know; it sounds easy," she sighed, "but it is n't. It's so hard to
think up what to give, and after I 've thought it up and bought it, I
'm just sure I ought to have got the other thing."

"But you should have some system about it."

"Oh, I had--a list," she replied dispiritedly. "But I'm so--tired."

Jasper Hawkins suddenly squared his shoulders.

"How many names have you left now to buy presents for?" he demanded
briskly.

"Three--Aunt Harriet, and Jimmy, and Uncle Harold. They always get
left till the last. They're so--impossible."

"Impossible? Nonsense!--and I'll prove it to you, too. Give yourself
no further concern, Edith, about Christmas, if _that_ is all there is
left to do--just consider it done."

"Do you mean--you'll get the presents for them?"

"Most certainly."

"But, Jasper, you know--"

An imperative gesture silenced her.

"My dear, I'm doing this to relieve you, and that means that you are
not even to think of it again."

"Very well; er--thank you," sighed the woman; but her eyes were
troubled.

Not so Jasper's; his eyes quite sparkled with anticipation as he left
the house some minutes later.

On the way downtown he made his plans and arranged his list. He wished
it were longer--that list. Three names were hardly sufficient to
demonstrate his theories and display his ability. As for Aunt Harriet,
Jimmy, and Uncle Harold being "impossible"--that was all nonsense, as
he had said; and before his eyes rose a vision of the three: Aunt
Harriet, a middle-aged spinster, poor, half-sick, and chronically
discontented with the world; Jimmy, a white-faced lad who was always
reading a book; and Uncle Harold, red-faced, red-headed,
and--red-tempered. (Jasper smiled all to himself at this last
thought.) "Red-tempered"--that was good. He would tell Edith--but he
would not tel