ns.

"Mammy arranged my hair and dress, and I went back to the parlor where
papa was sitting reading. He laid aside his book as soon as I entered
the room, took me on his knee, and began telling me funny stories that
kept me laughing till a carriage drove up to the door.

"'There, some one has come!' he said; 'it seems we are not to spend the
day alone after all.'

"Then in another minute or two, the door opened and in came my six
little friends for whom I had bought the presents."

Grace clapped her hands in delight. "Oh how nice! and didn't you have a
good time, Grandma Elsie?"

"Yes, very; they had all come to spend the day; I had the pleasure of
presenting my gifts in person and of seeing that they were fully
appreciated; we played quiet games and papa told us lovely stories.
There was no fretting or quarrelling, everybody was in high good humor,
and when the time came to separate, my guests all bade good bye, saying,
'they had never had a more enjoyable day.'"

"Now please tell about the next Christmas and New Year's, mamma," urged
Walter, as she paused, as though feeling that her tale was ended.

"Let mamma have time to breathe and to think what comes next, Walter,"
said Rosie. "Don't you see that's what she is doing?"

"I am thinking of those little friends of mine," sighed their mother;
"asking myself 'Where are they now?' Ah what changes life brings! how
short and hasty it is, and how soon it will be over! I mean the life in
this world.

"It is likened in the Bible to a pilgrimage, a tale that is told, a
flower that soon withers or is cut down by the mower's scythe, a dream,
a sleep, a vapor, a shadow, a handbreadth; a thread cut by the weaver."

"Mamma, are those friends of yours all dead?" asked Walter.

"I will tell you about them," she answered. "Herbert Carrington died
young--he was barely sixteen."

With the words a look of pain swept across the still fair, sweet face of
the speaker, and she paused for a moment as if almost overcome by some
sad recollection.

Violet, who had heard the story from Grandma Rose, understood it.

"Mamma, dear," she said softly, "what a happy thing it was for him--poor
sufferer that he was--to be taken so early to the Father's house on high
where pain and sin and sorrow are unknown!"

"Yes," returned her mother, furtively wiping away a tear, "and calling
to mind the dreadful scenes of the war that followed some years later,
and the sore trials that resulted in