“Oh, we know!  We found out!”

“Indeed!”

And we, made, of course, a great wonder of this assertion.  The merry elves!  What a happy Christmas it was for them.  Ever since, they have dated from the time when they found out who Kriss Kringle was.  It is all to no purpose that we pleasantly suggest the possibility of their having dreamed of what they allege to have occurred under their actual vision; they have recorded it in their memories, and refer to it as a veritable fact.

Dear children!  How little they really ask of us, to make them happy.  Did we give them but a twentieth part of the time we devote to business, care, and pleasure, how greatly would we promote their good, and increase the measure of their enjoyment.  Not alone at Christmas time, but all the year should we remember and care for their pleasures; for, the state of innocent pleasure, in children, is one in which good affections are implanted, and these take root and grow, and produce fruit in after life.

CHAPTER IX.

Not at home.

Never but once did I venture upon the utterance of that little white lie, “Not at home,” and then I was well punished for my weakness and folly.  It occurred at a time when there were in my family two new inmates:  a niece from New York, and a raw Irish girl that I had taken a few days before, on trial.

My niece, Agnes, was a young lady in her nineteenth year, the daughter of my brother.  I had not seen her before since her school-girl days; and knew little of her character.  Her mother I had always esteemed as a right-thinking, true-hearted woman.  I was much pleased to have a visit from Agnes, and felt drawn toward her more and more every day.  There was something pure and good about her.

“Now, Aggy, dear,” said I to her, one morning after breakfast, as we took our work and retired from the dining-room to one of the parlors, where I was occasionally in the habit of sitting,—­“we must sew for dear life until dinner time, so as to finish these two frocks for the children to wear this evening.  It isn’t right, I know, to impose on you in this way.  But you sew so quick and neatly; and then it will help me through, and leave me free to visit Girard College with you this afternoon.”

“Don’t speak of it, aunt,” returned Agnes.—­“I’m never happier than when employed.  And, besides, it’s only fair that I should sew for you in the morning, if you are to go pleasuring with me in the afternoon.”

Lightly the hours flew by, passed in cheerful conversation.  I found that the mind of my niece had been highly cultivated; that her tastes were refined, and her moral sense acute.  To say that I was pleased with her, would but half express what I felt.

There was to be a juvenile party at the house of one of our acquaintances that evening, to which the children were invited; and we were at work in preparing dresses and other matters suitable for them to appear in.