d them cunning enough for this? It's all Will's
doings. He'll get through the world."

"Aye will he," returned Mr. Smith. "Oh if you could have seen his
face as I saw it, just peering from under the table cloth, his eyes
as bright as stars, and full of merriment and delight."

"Bless his heart! He's a dear little fellow!"

How could I help saying this?

"And the others! You lost half the pleasure of the whole affair by
not seeing them."

"We shall have a frolic with the rogues to-morrow morning. I can see
the triumph on Will's face. I understand now what all their
whisperings meant this afternoon. They were concocting this plan. I
couldn't have believed it of them?"

"Children are curious bodies," said Mr. Smith.

"I thought I heard some one in the next room," I remarked, "while
you were out, and became really nervous for a while. I heard the
breathing of some one near me, also; but tried to argue myself into
the belief that it was only imagination."

Thus we conned over the little incident, while we arranged the
children's toys.

"I know who Kriss Kringle is! I know!" was the triumphant
affirmation of one and another of the children, as we gathered at
the breakfast table next morning.

"Do you, indeed?" said I, trying to look grave.

"Yes; it is papa."

"Papa, Kriss Kringle! How can that be?"

"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