annot be procured without difficulty.

If meat is desired, it can be added. That is another excellence about our
bill of fare. It has nothing in it which makes it incongruous with the
richest or the plainest tables. It is not overcrowded by the addition of
roast goose and plum-pudding; it is not harmed by the addition of herring
and potatoes. Nay, it can give flavor and richness to broken bits of stale
bread served on a doorstep and eaten by beggars.

We might say much more about this bill of fare. We might, perhaps, confess
that it has an element of the supernatural; that its origin is lost in
obscurity; that, although, as we said, it has never been printed before,
it has been known in all ages; that the martyrs feasted upon it; that
generations of the poor, called blessed by Christ, have laid out banquets
by it; that exiles and prisoners have lived on it; and the despised and
forsaken and rejected in all countries have tasted it. It is also true
that when any great king ate well and throve on his dinner, it was by the
same magic food. The young and the free and the glad, and all rich men in
costly houses, even they have not been well fed without it.

And though we have called it a Bill of Fare for a Christmas Dinner, that
is only that men's eyes may be caught by its name, and that they, thinking
it a specialty for festival, may learn and understand its secret, and
henceforth, laying all their dinners according to its magic order, may
"eat unto the Lord."

Children's Parties.

"From six till half-past eleven."

"German at seven, precisely."

These were the terms of an invitation which we saw last week. It was sent
to forty children, between the ages of ten and sixteen.

"Will you allow your children to stay at this party until half-past
eleven?" we said to a mother whose children were invited. "What can I do?"
she replied. "If I send the carriage for them at half-past ten, the
chances are that they will not be allowed to come away. It is impossible
to break up a set. And as for that matter, half-past ten is two hours and
a half past their bed-time; they might as well stay an hour longer. I wish
nobody would ever ask my children to a party. I cannot keep them at home,
if they are asked. Of course, I _might_; but I have not the moral courage
to see them so unhappy. All the other children go; and what can I do?"

This is a tender, loving mother, whose sweet, gentle, natural methods with
her children have