XV.
"THE FEAST O' THE BABE."
It was sure to be a green Christmas in that sunny land, but not the sort of "green Yule’ that makes the "fat kirkyard." If the New Englanders who had been transplanted to that shore of the Pacific ever longed for a bracing snowstorm, for frost pictures on the window-panes, for the breath of a crystal air blown over ice-fields—an air that nipped the ears, but sent the blood coursing through the veins, and made the turkey and cranberry sauce worth eating,—the happy children felt no lack, and basked contentedly in the soft December sunshine. Still further south there were mothers who sighed even more for the sound of merry sleigh-bells, the snapping of logs on the hearth, the cosy snugness of a fire-lit room made all the snugger by the fierce wind without: that, if you like, was a place to hang a row of little red and brown woolen stockings! And when the fortunate chil-
