“And Kitty, swooping on us from the oven, cried, ’Make yourself at home, sir; there’s more where these came from.  Make a long arm, Miss Patty, and hand them cakes.’

“So we had to devote ourselves to the duties of the table; and Patty, holding the lid with one hand and pouring with the other, supplied Father Christmas’s wants with a heavy heart.

“At last he was satisfied.  I said grace, during which he stood, and, indeed, he stood for some time afterward with his eyes shut—­I fancy under the impression that I was still speaking.  He had just said a fervent ‘amen,’ and reseated himself, when my father put his head into the kitchen, and made this remarkable statement: 

“‘Old Father Christmas has sent a tree to the young people.’

“Patty and I uttered a cry of delight, and we forthwith danced round the old man, saying, ‘How nice; Oh, how kind of you!’ which I think must have bewildered him, but he only smiled and nodded.

“‘Come along,’ said my father.  ’Come, children.  Come, Reuben.  Come, Kitty.’

“And he went into the parlour, and we all followed him.

“My godmother’s picture of a Christmas-tree was very pretty; and the flames of the candles were so naturally done in red and yellow that I always wondered that they did not shine at night.  But the picture was nothing to the reality.  We had been sitting almost in the dark, for, as Kitty said, ‘Firelight was quite enough to burn at meal-times.’  And when the parlour door was thrown open, and the tree, with lighted tapers on all the branches, burst upon our view, the blaze was dazzling, and threw such a glory round the little gifts, and the bags of coloured muslin, with acid drops and pink rose drops and comfits inside, as I shall never forget.  We all got something; and Patty and I, at any rate, believed that the things came from the stores of Old Father Christmas.  We were not undeceived even by his gratefully accepting a bundle of old clothes which had been hastily put together to form his present.

“We were all very happy; even Kitty, I think, though she kept her sleeves rolled up, and seemed rather to grudge enjoying herself (a weak point in some energetic characters).  She went back to her oven before the lights were out and the angel on the top of the tree taken down.  She locked up her present (a little work-box) at once.  She often showed it off afterward, but it was kept in the same bit of tissue paper till she died.  Our presents certainly did not last so long!

“The old man died about a week afterward, so we never made his acquaintance as a common personage.  When he was buried, his little dog came to us.  I suppose he remembered the hospitality he had received.  Patty adopted him, and he was very faithful.  Puss always looked on him with favour.  I hoped during our rambles together in the following summer that he would lead us at last to the cave where Christmas-trees are dressed.  But he never did.