Who is it that every year invents the thousand-and-one new and pretty things which hang on Christmas-trees, and stuff the toes of Christmas stockings?  Who is it that has so wise and watchful an eye for the capacities of little people, and the tastes of bigger ones, providing for each, planning for tiny purses with almost nothing in them, as well as for fat wallets stuffed with bank-bills, and suggesting something which can be made, accepted and enjoyed by everybody, large and small, all the wide world over?  Who can it be that possesses this inexhaustible fertility of invention and kindness of heart?  No ordinary human being, you may be sure.  Not Father Santa Claus!  He has enough to do with distributing the presents after they are made; besides, fancy-work is not in a man’s line,—­not even a saint’s!  But what so likely as that he should have a mate, and that it is to her we are indebted for all this?  What an immense work-basket Mother Santa Claus’s must be!  What a glancing thimble and swift needle and thread!  Can’t you imagine her throwing aside her scissors and spool-bag to help the dear saint “tackle up” and load the sledge?  And who knows but she sits behind as he drives over the roofs of the universe on the blessed eve, and holds the reins while Santa Claus dispenses to favored chimneys the innumerable pretty things which he and she have chuckled over together months and months before the rest of us knew anything about them?

This is not a fact.  It can’t be proved in any way, for none of us knows anything about the Santa Clauses or their abode.  There is no telegraphing, or writing to the selectmen of their town to inquire about them; they haven’t even a post-office address.  But admitting it to be a fiction, it is surely a pleasant one; so, as the children say, “Let’s play that it is true,” and proceed to see what Mother Santa Claus has in her basket for us this year.  We will first pull out some easy things for the benefit of little beginners who are not yet up to all the tricks of the needle; then some a little harder for the more advanced class; and, at bottom of all, big girls not afraid to dive will find plenty of elaborate designs suited to their taste and powers.

Here, to begin with, is something nice for papa’s pocket: 

A POSTAGE-STAMP HOLDER.

Cut two pieces of perforated board, or of stiff morocco, two inches long by one and a half wide, and stitch them together, leaving one end open.  If you choose the board, a little border in cat-stitch or feather-stitch should be worked before putting the pieces together, and, if you like, an initial in the middle of one side.  If the morocco is chosen, an initial in colored silk will be pretty, and the edges should be bound with narrow ribbon, and over-handed together.

Cut two other pieces of the material a quarter of an inch smaller than the first.  Bind the morocco with ribbon.  Make a fastening at one end with a ribbon loop; place the stamps between the two, and slip the little envelope thus filled into the outer case, the open end down.  It fits so snugly that it will not fall out in the pocket, and is easily drawn forth by means of the loop when papa wants to get at his stamps.