r' and 'Vixen' were nowhere to be seen.

"Here I found most of the houses were Swiss cottages, but there were
some fine churches and public buildings, all of beautifully illustrated
building blocks, and we stopped for a moment at a long depot, in which a
locomotive was just _smashing up_.

"Santa Claus' house stood in the middle of the town. It was an
old-fashioned looking house, very broad and low, with an enormous
chimney. There was a wide step in front of the door, shaded by a
fig-tree and grape-vine, and morning-glories and scarlet beans clambered
by the side of the latticed windows; and there were great round
rose-bushes, with great, round roses, on either side of the walk leading
to the door."

"O! it must have smelled like a party," said Effie, and then subsided,
as she remembered that she was interrupting.

"Inside, the house was just cozy and comfortable, a real grandfatherly
sort of a place. A big chair was drawn up in front of the window, and a
big book was open on a table in front of the chair. A great pack half
made up was on the floor, and Santa Claus stopped to add a few things
from his pocket. Then he went to the kitchen, and brought me a lunch of
milk and strawberries and cookies, for he said I must be tired after my
long walk.

"After I had rested a little while, he said if I liked I might go with
him to the observatory. But just as we were starting a funny little
fellow stopped at the door with a wheelbarrow full of boxes of dishes.
After Santa Claus had taken the boxes out and put them in the pack he
said slowly,--

"'Let me see!'

"He laid his finger beside his nose as he said it, and looked at me
attentively, as if I were a sum in addition, and he was adding me up. I
guess I must have come out right, for he looked satisfied, and said I'd
better go to the mine first, and then join him in the observatory. Now I
am afraid he was not exactly polite not to go with me himself," added
Lill, gravely, "but then he apologized by saying he had some work to do.
So I followed the little fellow with the wheelbarrow, and we soon came
to what looked like the entrance of a cave, but I suppose it was the
mine. I followed my guide to the interior without stopping to look at
the boxes and piles of dishes outside. Here I found other funny little
people, busily at work with picks and shovels, taking out wooden dishes
from the bottom of the cave, and china and glass from the top and sides,
for the dishes hung do