affection.

If, with all this, we can make our offerings hallowed by a tenderer
love and a deeper affection for Him in whose honor the whole world
keeps the festival, then, indeed, the day becomes to us the most
blessed and beautiful of our lives!

Marion Parke saw it as it was kept here in an entirely new way. At her
Western home, her father had made it a day of religious observance.
Marion had always been leader in trimming their church with the pretty
greens which their mild winter spared to them, and on Christmas Sunday
they sang Christmas hymns, and listened to a Christmas sermon. On
Christmas Eve they had a Christmas-tree, and hung it with such useful
gifts as their necessities demanded and a small purse could provide.
It was a happy, precious day, simply and heartily kept; but here she
was lost in wonder, as she was called from room to room to see the
rare and beautiful gifts which, it seemed to her, abounded everywhere.
Money to purchase such things for herself to give away she had not,
but she watched her room-mates, as they deftly prepared their gifts
for their Rock Cove homes, with delight.

How busy and happy they were! Sometimes Marion's longing to send
something, if only a little remembrance, home brought the tears into
her eyes.

Gladys was the first to see this and to guess its cause. At once she
began to purchase new silks, trimmings of all kinds, booklets, cards,
increasing her store, until even her cousins, accustomed as they were
to her fitful extravagances, wondered at her.

When her drawers, never too orderly, began to assume a chaotic
appearance, she said fretfully one morning to Marion Parke, who was
looking and laughing at the chaos,--

"I should think, instead of laughing at me, it would be a great deal
better natured in you to help me put them into some kind of order.
Your drawer isn't half full. Look here! open it, and let me tuck some
of these duds in."

Marion opened hers, pushed the few things it contained carefully into
a corner, and said,--

"You are very welcome to all the room you want. Remember, I am only
here on sufferance; it is really all yours."

"Nonsense! help me, can't you? I shall pitch them in any way, and you
are so tidy!"

Help her Marion did, and when the jumbled but valuable contents of the
drawer were all transferred, Gladys shut it up with a gleeful laugh.

"Oh, how splendid it is," she said, "to have the drawer clean and
clear again! Never one of those d