There are many days like this in the autumn, but the frost will come at last, and the snow too.  This is winter, but winter brings the best pleasure of all.

When two weeks of the winter had nearly passed, the children, as you may suppose, began to think of Christmas, and, indeed, their best and most loving friend had been preparing for them the sweetest of Christmas presents.  Ten days before Christmas it came, however.  Can you guess what it was?  Something for all of them,—­something which Christian will like just as well as little Gretchen will, and the father and mother will perhaps be more pleased than any one else.

Do you know what it is?  What do you think of a little baby brother,—­a little round, sweet, blue-eyed baby brother as a Christmas present for them all?

When Christmas Eve came, the mother said:  “The children must have their Christmas-tree in my room, for baby is one of the presents, and I don’t think I can let him be carried out and put upon the table in the hall, where we had it last year.”

So all day long the children are kept away from their mother’s room.  Their father comes home with his great coat-pockets very full of something, but, of course, the children don’t know what.  He comes and goes, up stairs and down, and, while they are all at play in the snow, a fine young fir-tree is brought in and carried up.  Louise knows it, for she picked up a fallen branch upon the stairs, but she doesn’t tell Fritz and Gretchen.

How they all wait and long for the night to come!  They sit at the windows, watching the red sunset light upon the snow, and cannot think of playing or eating their supper.  The parlor door is open, and all are waiting and listening.  A little bell rings, and in an instant there is a scampering up the broad stairs to the door of mother’s room; again the little bell rings, and the door is opened wide by their father, who stands hidden behind it.

At the foot of their mother’s white-curtained bed stands the little fir-tree; tiny candles are burning all over it like little stars, and glittering golden fruits are hanging among the dark-green branches.  On the white-covered table are laid Fritz’s sword and Gretchen’s big doll, they being too heavy for the tree to hold.  Under the branches Louise finds charming things; such a little work-box as it is a delight to see, with a lock and key, and inside, thimble and scissors, and neat little spools of silk and thread.  Then there are the fairy stories of the old Black Forest, and that most charming of all little books, “The White Cat,” and an ivory cup and ball for Fritz.  Do you remember where the ivory comes from?  And, lest Baby Hans should think himself forgotten, there is an ivory rattle for him.

There he lies in the nurse’s arms, his blue eyes wide open with wonder, and in a minute the children, with arms full of presents, have gathered round the old woman’s arm-chair,—­gathered round the best and sweetest little Christmas present of all.  And the happy mother, who sits up among the pillows, taking her supper, while she watches her children, forgets to eat, and leaves the gruel to grow cold, but her heart is warm enough.