best down-pillow for the thing that I could find—for I wasn't going to skimp on Dr. Maynard's Christmas present, after all his generosity—and also a heavy black silk cord to go around the edge. I must confess when it was all done—the black letters standing up so that they cast a shadow on the red satin, and the surface as round and full as a raised biscuit—I must confess it was perfectly lovely. I think Mr. Blanchard would have liked it very much. I wrapped it up very carefully in tissue paper, over that a layer of brown paper held together by pins, and put it well out of sight on my closet shelf. I was determined that Ruth shouldn't see it.
Christmas used to be a great day with us. Tom always came home from the West; and we had fricasseed chicken for breakfast; turkey and pies for dinner; figs, nuts and Malaga grapes for supper. We never celebrated with a Christmas tree (we considered them childish) and the younger ones of us—Ruth and I and the twins—never hung our stockings. Since Mother died there was no one to keep up the fiction of Santa Claus, and I remember we used to feel awfully set-up and superior at the church supper on Christmas Eve when we, with grown-ups, knew that the person in the old red coat and white beard was just the Sunday-school superintendent dressed up. We always opened our presents in the sitting-room directly after breakfast. Each member of the family had a chair of his own, with his presents piled in it. When we all finally got started on the opening, I don't know whether we were more interested in seeing the presents we had given, opened, or opening the ones we had received. It was a won-
