, the harder he looked at the fire, which knowingly answered
his look with a winking and blinking of its great bright eye, that
seemed to say, "Well, Uncle Juvinell, what shall we do for the
entertainment or instruction of these little people to-night? Shall we
tell them of that crew of antic goblins we wot of, who are wont to
meet by moonlight, to play at football with the hanged man's head,
among the tombstones of an old graveyard? Or may be that dreadful
ogre, with the one fiery eye in the middle of his forehead, who was in
the habit of roasting fat men on a spit for his Christmas dinners,
would be more to their taste. Or, if you prefer it, let it be that
beautiful fairy, who, mounted on a milk-white pony, and dressed in
green and gold, made her home in an echoing wood, for no other purpose
than to lead little children therefrom, who might by some ill chance
be separated from their friends, and lose their way in its tangled
wilds. Or perhaps you are thinking it would be more instructive to
them were we to conjure up some story of early times in green
Kentucky, when our great-grandfathers were wont to take their rifles
to bed with them, and sleep with them in their arms, ready to spring
up at the slightest rustling of the dry leaves in the woods, and
defend themselves against the dreaded Indian, as with panther-like
tread he skulked around their lonely dwellings."

To each and all of these, Uncle Juvinell shook his head; none of them
being just exactly the thing he wanted. At length, finding that the
fire hindered rather than helped him to make a choice, he rose from
his seat, turned his back upon it, and looked from one bright face to
another of the circle before him, till his eye rested on Daniel, who
was among the oldest of the children, and was, by the way, the young
historian of the family, and, in his own opinion, a youth of rather
uncommon parts. He had that morning received from his uncle, as a
Christmas present, that most delightful of story-books, "Robinson
Crusoe;" but having seen the unlucky sailor high, but not dry, on his
desert island, and having run his eye over all the pictures, he had
laid it aside, and was now standing at the reading-desk, looking as
wise as a young owl in a fog over a very large book indeed, in which
he pretended to be too deeply interested to finish a slab of
gingerbread that lay half munched at his side.

Seeing his little nephew thus engaged, Uncle Juvinell smiled a quiet
smil