home, she notifies her hostess of her safe
return and her enjoyment of the visit, as soon as she is back again. If
a bouquet is sent her,--too informal for a note,--she remembers to
speak of it afterward. You never can remember? No; but Fanny does. That
is why I admire her. If she has borrowed a book, she has an
appreciative word to say when she returns it; and if she has dropped it
in the mud, she does not apologize and offer to replace it. She
replaces it first and apologizes afterward, though she has to sacrifice
a much-needed pair of four-button gloves to do it! Indeed, no person
has as little apologizing to do as Fanny, because she does everything
promptly; and you may notice that what we apologize for chiefly is
delay. We perform our little social duties, only not in good season,
and so rob them of half their grace. It takes no longer to answer a
letter to-day than it will take to-morrow. But if the letter requires
an answer instantly, and you put it off day after day, your
correspondent is vexed, and your tardy answer will never be quite a
reparation. Remember that no explanation, no apology, is quite as good
as to have done the thing exactly as it should be in the first place.

JACK'S CHRISTMAS

BY EMMA K. PARRISH.

Jack had just heard of Christmas for the first time! Ten years old, and
never knew about Christmas before! Jack's mother was a weary,
overworked woman, and had no heart to tell the children about merry
times and beautiful things in which they could have no share.

His parents were very poor. When I tell you that they lived in a
log-house you might think so, although some people live very
comfortably in log-houses. But when I say that the snow drifted through
the cracks in the roof until the chamber floor was fit to go sleighing
on, and that it was so cold down-stairs that the gravy froze on the
children's plates while they were eating breakfast, and that the little
girls had no shoes but cloth ones which their mother sewed to their
stockings, you will see that they were poor indeed. Mrs. Boyd, Jack's
mother, generally went about her work with a shawl tied around her, and
a comforter over her ears, on account of the ear-ache; and on the
coldest days she kept Jack's little sisters wrapped up from head to
foot and perched on chairs near the stove, so they wouldn't freeze. No;
she didn't feel much like telling them about Christmas, when she didn't
know but they would freeze to death, or, may