r. Corbet has gone away."

Mary returns, face one broad grin.

"No, ma'am, Mr. Corbet is there."

Heavy steps in the red parlor. Side door-bell--a little gong, begins to
ring. Front bell rings ninth time, tenth, and eleventh.

Saint John, as we call him, had seen that something was amiss, and had
kindly pitched in with a dissertation on the passage of the Red-River
Dam, in which the gravy-boats were steamships, and the cranberry was
General Banks, and the aids were spoons. But, when both door-bells rang
together, and there were more steps in the hall, Huldah said, "If you
will excuse me," and rose from the table.

"No, no, we will not excuse you," cried Clara Hastings. "Nobody will
excuse you. This is the one day of the year when you are not to work.
Let me go." So Clara went out. And after Clara went out, the door-bells
rang no more. I think she cut the bell-wires. She soon came back, and
said a man was inquiring his way to the "Smells;" and they directed him
to "Wait's Mills," which she hoped would do. And so Huldah's and Grace's
stupendous housekeeping went on in its solid order, reminding one of
those well-proportioned Worcester teas which are, perhaps, the crown and
glory of the New England science in this matter. I ventured to ask Sam
Root, who sat by me, if the Marlborough were not equal to his mother's.

And we sat long; and we laughed loud. We talked war and poetry and
genealogy. We rallied Helen Touro about her housekeeping; and Dr.
Worster pretended to give a list of Surgeons and Majors and
Major-Generals who had made love to Huldah. By and by, when the grapes
and the bonbons came, the sixteen children were led in by Maria Munro,
who had, till now, kept them at games of string and hunt the slipper.
And, at last, Seth Corbet flung open the door into the red parlor to
announce "The Tree."

Sure enough, there was the tree, as the five saints had prepared it for
the invited children,--glorious in gold, and white with wreaths of
snow-flakes, and blazing with candles. Sam Root kissed Grace, and said,
"O Grace! do you remember?" But the tree itself did not surprise the
children as much as the five tables at the right and the left, behind
and before, amazed the Sainted Five, who were indeed the children now. A
box of the _vin rouge de Bourgogne_, from Louis, was the first thing my
eye lighted on, and above it a little banner read, "Huldah's table." And
then I saw that there were these five tables, heaped with