In obedience to the widow’s entreaties the tutor opened a window, and tried to carry MacGreedy to the air; but that young gentleman utterly refused to allow the tutor to approach him, and was borne howling to bed by his mamma.

With the fresh air the fumes of the fragrant smoke dispersed, and the company roused themselves.

“Rather oppressive, eh?” said the master of the house, who had had his dream too, with which we have no concern.

The dogs had had theirs also, and had testified to the same in their sleep by low growls and whines.  Now they shook themselves, and rubbed against each other, growling in a warlike manner through their teeth, and wagging peaceably with their little stumpy tails.

The twins shook themselves, and fell to squabbling as to whether they had been to sleep or no; and, if either, which of them had given way to that weakness.

Miss Letitia took the paper bonnet from her head with a nervous laugh, and after looking regretfully at the cracker papers put them in her pocket.

The parson went home through the frosty night.  In the village street he heard a boy’s voice singing two lines of the Christian hymn—­

     “Trace we the Babe Who hath redeemed our loss
     From the poor Manger to the bitter Cross;”

and his eyes filled with tears.

The old lady went to bed and slept in peace.

“In all the thirty-five years we have been privileged to hear you, sir,” she told the rector next day after service, “I never heard such a Christmas sermon before.”

The visitor carefully preserved the blue paper and the cracker motto.  He came down early next morning to find the white half to put with them.  He did not find it, for the young lady had taken it the night before.

The tutor had been in the room before him, wandering round the scene of the evening’s festivities.

The yule log lay black and cold upon the hearth, and the tutor nodded to it.  “I told you how it would be,” he said; “but never mind, you have had your day, and a merry one too.”  In the corner lay the heap of crackers which Master MacGreedy had been too ill to remember when he retired.  The tutor pocketed them with a grim smile.

As to the comfit, it was eaten by one of the dogs, who had come down earliest of all.  He swallowed it whole, so whether it contained an almond or not, remains a mystery to the present time.

* * * * *

AMELIA AND THE DWARFS.

My godmother’s grandmother knew a good deal about the fairies. Her grandmother had seen a fairy rade on a Roodmas Eve, and she herself could remember a copper vessel of a queer shape which had been left by the elves on some occasion at an old farm-house among the hills, The following story came from her, and where she got it I do not know.  She used to say it was a pleasant tale, with a good moral in the inside of it.  My godmother often observed that a tale without a moral was like a nut without a kernel; not worth the cracking. (We called fire-side stories “cracks” in our part of the country.) This is the tale.