While we were still discussing them, the proprietor came up to announce to us that there was to be a Christmas Eve entertainment in the main dining-room that evening, and would the American ladies do him the honor to come down?  The American ladies would.

When we went down we found that the enormous dining-room was packed with people, all standing around a table which ran around two sides of the room.  A row of Christmas trees, covered with cotton to represent snow, occupied the middle of the room, and at one end was a space reserved for the lady guests, and in each chair was a handsome bouquet of violets and lilies-of-the-valley.

This entertainment was for the servants of the hotel, of whom there were three hundred and fifty.

First they sang a Lutheran hymn, very slowly, as if it were a dirge.  Then there was a short sermon.  Then another hymn.  Then the manager made a little speech and called, for three cheers for the proprietor, and they gave them with a fervor that nearly split the ears of the groundlings.

Then a signal was given, and in less than one minute three hundred and fifty paper bags were produced, and three hundred and fifty plates full of oranges, apples, buns, and sweetened breads were emptied into them.  The table looked as if a plague of grasshoppers had swept over it.

Then each servant presented a number and received a present from the tree, and that ended the festivity.  But so typical of the fatherland, so paternal, so like one great family!

Participating in this simple festival brought a little of the Christmas feeling home to us and made us almost happy.  We knew that our American parcels would not be delivered until the next day, so we had but just time to reread our precious letters when the clock struck twelve, and with much solemnity my companion and I presented each other with our modest Christmas present—­which each had announced that she wanted and had helped to select!  But, then, who would not rather select one’s own Christmas presents, and so be sure of getting things that one wants?

On Christmas morning registered packages began to arrive for both of us.  The first ten presents to arrive for my companion were pocket-handkerchiefs.  My first ten were all books.  Evidently the dear family had thought that American books would be most acceptable over here, and I could see, with a feeling that warmed my heart, how carefully they had consulted my taste, and had tried to remember to send those I wanted.  But I am of a frugal mind, and thoughts of the extra luggage to be paid on bound books would intrude themselves.  However, I made no remark over the first ten, but before the day was over I had received twenty-two books and one pen-wiper, and my vocabulary was exhausted.  My companion continued to receive handkerchiefs until the room was full of them.  Take it all together, there was a good deal of sameness about our presents, but they have been useful as dinner anecdotes ever since.  Now that I have sent all mine to be stored at Munroe’s, together with all my other necessities, I feel lighter and more buoyant both in mind and trunk.