Children, I’ve got a lot to tell you about what has happened to Walter and Gertrude since the curtain closed.  For quite a while they went on sleeping, because it was still night, you know.  And then morning came, and it didn’t take them long to wake up after that, I can tell you.  As soon as it was really light, they put on their wrappers, and woke their father and mother, and then they went for the stockings.  They took them into their grandparents’ room, and Grandmother and Grandfather sat up in bed with shawls over their shoulders, and the rest sat on the edge of the bed.  Then they all opened their stockings, and I couldn’t begin to tell you what fine presents they found in them, nor how happy they all were.  After breakfast they all sat down by the kitchen fire, and father got the big family Bible, and laid it on Grandfather’s lap, and Grandfather polished up his spectacles till they shone, and put them on his nose, and then he read about the story of the first Christmas long ago in Bethlehem.  And it was all so quiet while he was reading that you could almost hear the snow flakes falling outside, for it had begun to snow.  Then, when Grandfather had finished reading, and closed the Bible, they all sang a Christmas carol, which they always sings together every Christmas in that house; and they sang it out so clear and strong, that a traveler in a sleigh, way down at the cross-roads, heard it, and it sounded so good that he stopped his horse in spite of the storm, and listened till it was over.  Well, I can’t tell you everything else they did that morning except that Father found the floor all swept, and knew it must have been done by the brownies; and then Mother found the paper caps that the house-fairies had made.  She was ever so glad; and so were the children when they opened them up and put them on.  You’ll see how they look on the children’s heads when the curtain opens.  Then about the dinner.  Father had brought in the big table, and set it up in the kitchen in front of the fire-place, and Mother put on the plates and the forks and the knives and the spoons and all the rest.  Then the goose was roasted, and, oh, how good it smelt when it was cooking.  At last everything was ready and twelve o’clock came, and they all sat down at the table.  And do you know, I believe they are still sitting there behind the curtain.  But they have finished the goose and the apple sauce and all the good things that went with them, and now they are just going to begin on the pudding.  They don’t know a thing about the magic nuts, because the brownies and the fairies stuck them in so neatly, that not one of them shows.  Mother is just starting to put the pudding on the saucers.  I wonder if she will remember about giving it to the youngest first.  That’s Gertrude, you know.  Do you want to see for yourselves whether she remembers?  Well, be very quiet then, for now it is going to begin.

The Third Scene