ere in a perfect glow, which made them look like a very
handsome family--for, let me tell you, that good humor and innocent
merriment are very becoming to everybody, while ill-temper makes one
look like a fright.

But how was this difficult matter of sock and stocking to be settled?
Why, by the children's papa, to be sure! for he was a lawyer, and did
nothing all day long but settle difficulties, or make them worse, I
don't know which.

He took two long slips of paper, and wrote "Socks" on one and
"Stockings" on the other. These he put in his hat, which George brought
out of the hall. Then he rang the bell, and told the waiter who answered
it to request Mrs. Custard, the cook, to come up to the parlor for a
moment.

Mrs. Custard, who was very fat, and, besides, had the rheumatism, came
into the room quite breathless, looking very much surprised and a little
frightened. She had dropped her thimble that day, when she was sewing up
the stuffing in the turkey, and had not had time to look for it; and she
was panic struck lest her master had found it roasted in the very middle
of the turkey, and was going to ask her if she thought she was cooking
for an ostrich, which, as everybody knows, prefers a dinner of iron
spikes, pebble stones, and oyster shells to roast beef.

But nothing of the kind happened. The children's papa only said, "Good
evening, Mrs. Custard, you gave us a very nice dinner to-day. I want you
to put your hand in this hat and draw out one piece of paper."

"Laws me, sir!" exclaimed the cook, "I hopes you don't mean to play no
trick on me; will it bite?"

The children fairly screamed with laughter at the idea of a piece of
paper biting; and the cook made them laugh still harder, when she put
her hand in very cautiously, and twitched it out three times, before she
ventured to feel for the paper.

At last one piece was caught, and on it was written "SOCKS," which made
George first jump up and down in an ecstacy of delight, and then run to
Helen and tell her he was really sorry that it had not been the other.

This decided the momentous question, and Mrs. Custard hobbled down
stairs, and the children hopped, skipped, and jumped up stairs, both
wondering what would come of this magical word "socks."

Helen had a pretty little room opening out of her mother's, but George's
was in an upper story. When they were both asleep, the mother took out
of her son's bureau a clean white sock, sewed a tape loop on t