n a tender and regretful memory to both of us. And
how sacred is the memory of such a loss!

Christmas? What delight could I have in long solicitude and
ingenious devices touching a gift for Polly within my means, and
hitting the border line between her necessities and her extravagant
fancy? A drove of white elephants would n't have been good enough
for her now, if each one carried a castle on his back.

"--and so they were married, and in their snug cottage lived happy
ever after."--It was Polly's voice, as she closed the book.

"There, I don't believe you have heard a word of it," she said half
complainingly.

"Oh, yes, I have," I cried, starting up and giving the fire a jab
with the poker; "I heard every word of it, except a few at the close
I was thinking"--I stopped, and looked round.

"Why, Polly, where is the camel's-hair shawl?"

"Camel's-hair fiddlestick! Now I know you have been asleep for an
hour."

And, sure enough, there was n't any camel's-hair shawl there, nor any
uncle, nor were there any Hindoos at our windows.

And then I told Polly all about it; how her uncle came back, and we
were rich and lived in a palace and had no end of money, but she
didn't seem to have time to love me in it all, and all the comfort of
the little house was blown away as by the winter wind. And Polly
vowed, half in tears, that she hoped her uncle never would come back,
and she wanted nothing that we had not, and she wouldn't exchange our
independent comfort and snug house, no, not for anybody's mansion.
And then and there we made it all up, in a manner too particular for
me to mention; and I never, to this day, heard Polly allude to My
Uncle in India.

And then, as the clock struck eleven, we each produced from the place
where we had hidden them the modest Christmas gifts we had prepared
for each other, and what surprise there was! "Just the thing I
needed." And, "It's perfectly lovely." And, "You should n't have
done it." And, then, a question I never will answer, "Ten? fifteen?
five? twelve?" "My dear, it cost eight hundred dollars, for I have
put my whole year into it, and I wish it was a thousand times
better."

And so, when the great iron tongue of the city bell swept over the
snow the twelve strokes that announced Christmas day, if there was
anywhere a happier home than ours, I am glad of it!

IN THE WILDERNESS

By Charles Dudley Warner

CONTENTS:
HOW I KILLED A BEAR
LOST IN THE WOOD