ok the form only of feeble
protests. This led the girl to hope her relative might gradually be
won over.

Then, as the holidays approached, bringing a letter from Molly in
which she stated that she and the Judge would arrive at Bellvieu
several days before Christmas, the stage career was for the time
relegated to the innermost recesses of her mind, and she joined Aunt
Betty in an effort to have a real, old-fashioned Christmas. This,
with the aid of Ephraim, Dinah and Chloe, they were fortunately able
to do. As the preparations went forward, Aunt Betty's delight knew no
bounds, and her soul was filled with rapturousness as joy after joy
unfolded itself to relieve the tedium and monotony of her old age.

A week before the eventful day, Ephraim and Metty, with two other
negroes, hired for the occasion, took a team and sleigh and set out
for the timber along the shore of the bay. There had been a heavy
fall of snow the night before and the ground was covered with a
sparkling mantle, while an invigorating breeze from the north filled
everyone with energetic desires.

Once at their destination Ephraim and his men felled a large black
gum tree from which two logs were cut. These were just short of four
feet in length and cut with the especial purpose of filling the two
large fire-places in the Calvert mansion.

Returning late in the evening with their load, they rolled the big
logs into the duck pond back of the barn, where the crust of ice was
thin, there to soak until Christmas morning, at which time they would
be placed in their respective fire-places in the big dining and
living-rooms of the house, and a fire kindled.

Ephraim was thoroughly familiar with the old custom, and it was
understood between him and Aunt Betty that he should keep good fires
burning during the day and banked during the night after bed time.
Logs such as these would, by this process, last ten days, or until
the holidays had come and gone, for they were burned until not a
vestige remained but ashes.

During the latter part of November Aunt Betty had caused a half dozen
of her finest turkeys to be put up to fatten. Some days later several
huge pound cakes had been baked and a nice little pig put in the pen
to grow round and tender, later to be roasted whole, with a tempting
red apple in his mouth. Mincemeat, souse, and stuffed sausages, those
edibles of the early days, which Aunt Betty had grown to love and
yearn for, were provided on this occ