hing, that you give because you must, and she takes because
she must, might, if broken up into smaller sums, send real warm and
heartfelt gladness through many a cold and cheerless dwelling, through
many an aching heart."

"You are getting to be an orator, aunt; but don't you approve of
Christmas presents, among friends and equals?"

"Yes, indeed," said her aunt, fondly stroking her head. "I have had some
Christmas presents that did me a world of good--a little book mark, for
instance, that a certain niece of mine worked for me, with wonderful
secrecy, three years ago, when she was not a young lady with a purse
full of money--that book mark was a true Christmas present; and my young
couple across the way are plotting a profound surprise to each other on
Christmas morning. John has contrived, by an hour of extra work every
night, to lay by enough to get Mary a new calico dress; and she, poor
soul, has bargained away the only thing in the jewelry line she ever
possessed, to be laid out on a new hat for him.

"I know, too, a washerwoman who has a poor, lame boy--a patient, gentle
little fellow--who has lain quietly for weeks and months in his little
crib, and his mother is going to give him a splendid Christmas present."

"What is it, pray?"

"A whole orange! Don't laugh. She will pay ten whole cents for it; for
it shall be none of your common oranges, but a picked one of the very
best going! She has put by the money, a cent at a time, for a whole
month; and nobody knows which will be happiest in it, Willie or his
mother. These are such Christmas presents as I like to think of--gifts
coming from love, and tending to produce love; these are the appropriate
gifts of the day."

"But don't you think that it's right for those who _have_ money to give
expensive presents, supposing always, as you say, they are given from
real affection?"

"Sometimes, undoubtedly. The Savior did not condemn her who broke an
alabaster box of ointment--_very precious_--simply as a proof of love,
even although the suggestion was made, 'This might have been sold for
three hundred pence, and given to the poor.' I have thought he would
regard with sympathy the fond efforts which human love sometimes makes
to express itself by gifts, the rarest and most costly. How I rejoiced
with all my heart, when Charles Elton gave his poor mother that splendid
Chinese shawl and gold watch! because I knew they came from the very
fulness of his heart to a mothe