ght
in, during the evening, with an air of profound secrecy, something
covered with a large handkerchief. Of course there could be no peace,
and no blindman's-buff, no stage-coach, no twirling the platter, and no
snap-dragon, until the mystery was revealed; The whole crowd of short
frocks and trowsers, and bright ribbons, and eyes, and curls, swarmed
around the painter until he displayed a green branch.

A pair of tiny feet, carrying a pair of great blue eyes and a head of
golden curls, scampered across the floor to Lawrence Newt.

"Oh, papa, what is that green thing with little berries on it?"

"That's a misletoe bough, little Hope."

"But, papa, what's it for?"

The painter was already telling the children what it was for; and when he
had hung it up over the folding-doors such a bubbling chorus of laughter
and merry shrieks followed, there was such a dragging of little girls in
white muslin by little boys in blue velvet, and such smacking, and
kissing, and happy confusion, that the little Hope's curiosity was
immediately relieved. Of all the ingenious inventions of their friend
the painter, this of the misletoe was certainly the most transcendent.

But when Arthur Merlin himself joined the romp, and, chasing Hope
Wayne through the lovely crowd of shouting girls and boys, finally caught
her and led her to the middle of the room and dropped on one knee and
kissed her hand under the misletoe, then the delight burst all bounds;
and as Hope Wayne's bright, beautiful face glanced merrily around the
room--bright and beautiful, although she is young no longer--she saw that
the elders were shouting with the children, and that Lawrence Newt and
his wife, and his niece Fanny, and papa and mamma Wynne, and Bennet, were
all clapping their hands and laughing.

She laughed too; and Arthur Merlin laughed; and when Ellen Bennet's
oldest daughter (of whom there are certain sly reports, in which her name
is coupled with that of her cousin Edward, May Newt's oldest son) sat
down to the piano and played a Virginia reel, it was Arthur Merlin who
handed out Hope Wayne with mock gravity, and stepped about and bowed
around so solemnly, that little Hope Newt, sitting upon her papa's knee
and nestling her golden curls among his gray hair, laughed all the time,
and wished that Christmas came every day in the year, and that she might
always see Mr. Arthur Merlin dancing with dear Aunt Hope.

When the dance was over and the panting childre