to set up a statue of Hestia yonder in my
imitation prostas, I have built instead this small sacred nook for
prayer, which helps me spiritually, much as the Ulah aids Islam."

"Your oratory is lovely, and I wish its counterpart adorned every
homestead in our land; but are you quite sure that in your individual
experience you are not mistaking effect for cause? Your holy heart
demands fit shrine for--"

"I am quite sure I will not allow you to stand a moment longer on this
cold floor; and I do not intend that you shall pay me undeserved
compliments. It is derogatory to your dignity, and dangerous to my
modicum of humility. As soon as you are ready for breakfast, come to
the dining-room, where Santa Klaus left his remembrances last night. O,
Leighton! I had half a mind to hang up two stockings at uncle's bed,
for the sake of dear old lang syne. If we could only shut our eyes, and
drift back to the magical time of aprons, short clothes, and
roundabouts, when a sugar rooster with green wings and pink head, and a
doll that could open and shut her eyes, were considered more precious
than Tiffany's jewels, or Collamore's Crown Derby! Can Delmonico offer
you a repast half as appetizing as the hominy, the tea cakes, the honey
and the sweet milk which you and I used to enjoy at our supper just at
sunset, at our own little table set under the red mulberry trees in the
back yard?"

"Why should my cousin, whose present is so rose-colored, whose future
so blissful, turn to rake amid the ashes of the past?"

"Because, like Lot's wife, we are all prone to stare backward. Who
lives in the present? Do you? When we are young we pant for the future,
that pitches painted tents before us. When we are older, we live in the
past, that wraps itself in a sacred gilding glamour, and is vocal with
the happy echoes which alone survive. Far-off fields before and behind
us are so dewy, so vividly green; and the present is gray and stony,
and barren of charm, and we turn fretfully. It is part of the grim
tyranny of Time that it is tideless; that the stream bears
remorselessly on, and on, never back to the dear old spots; always on,
to lose itself in the eternal and unknown. So, to-day's Christmas lacks
the zest of its predecessors."

Leo loosened the gilded chain that looped the curtains, and as the
purple folds fell behind her, hiding the arch, Doctor Douglass said
gently:

"There is a solemn truth and wise admonition in one of Rabbi Tyra's
d