“They are just beautiful, my dear, sweet, pretty mamma,” cried Gracie, running to her and half smothering her with hugs and kisses.

“There, pet, that will do,” said Violet, laughing, as she returned a hearty kiss, then gently disengaged the child’s arms from her neck; “we must make haste to array you in them before the tea-bell rings,” and taking Gracie’s hand, she led her toward the bed.

Lulu was standing there smoothing down the folds of her new dress, and noting, with a thrill of pleasure, how prettily the rich sash and ribbons contrasted with its creamy whiteness.  “Mamma Vi,” she said, looking up into her young stepmother’s face, her expression a mixture of penitence and gratitude, “how good you and Grandma Elsie are to me!  Indeed, everybody here is good to me; though I—­I’m so bad-tempered.”

“You have been very good of late, dear,” Violet said, bending down to kiss her forehead, “and it is a dear delight to me to do all I can to make my husband’s children happy.”

Agnes now came to Violet’s assistance, and when the tea-bell rang, a few minutes later, the two little girls were quite ready to descend with their mamma to the supper-room.

Grandma Elsie looked in on her way down, and Violet said, sportively, “See, mamma, I have my dolls dressed.”

“Yes,” Elsie returned, with a smile, “you were always fond of dressing dolls,” and, passing a hand over Gracie’s curls and touching Lulu’s cheek caressingly with the other, “these are better worth it than any you have had heretofore.”

“Grandma Elsie,” said Lulu in her fearless, straightforward way, and gazing with earnest, affectionate scrutiny into the fair face, “you don’t look as if you could be mother to Mamma Vi and Aunt Elsie and Uncle Edward.”

“Why, my child?” laughed the lady addressed; “can’t you see a resemblance?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am! but you look so young, not so very much older than they do.”

They were now passing through the upper hall.  Walter had hold of his mother’s hand, and Rosie had just joined them.

“That is true,” she remarked, and I am so glad of it!  I couldn’t bear to have my dear, beautiful mamma grow old, and wrinkled, and gray.”

“Yet it will have to be some day, Rosie, unless she is laid away out of sight before the time comes for those changes,” the mother answered with gentle gravity.

There were various exclamations of surprise and pleasure from the children as they entered the supper-room.  Its walls were beautifully trimmed with evergreens, and bouquets of hot-house flowers adorned the table, filling the air with delicious fragrance.

When the meal was over, all adjourned to the parlor usually occupied by them when not entertaining company.  This, too, they found trimmed with evergreens, and while the children were looking about and commenting upon the taste displayed in their arrangement, the folding doors communicating with another parlor were suddenly thrown open, disclosing the grand achievement of the afternoon—­the beautiful Christmas tree—­tall, wide-spreading, glittering with lights and tinsel ornaments, gorgeous with gay colors, and every branch loaded down with gifts.