ds that gathered the flower-treasures with
such delight--where are they all? Men and women, some in far-off
lands, perhaps; or too wearied by cares and sorrows to look for the
spring flowers of long ago. And some--the sweetest of all, _these_
seem--farther away still, and yet surely nearer? in the happier land,
whose flowers our fancy tries in vain to picture.

But I am forgetting a little, I think, that I am going to tell about a
child to children, and that my "tellings" begin, not in March or April,
but at Christmas-time. Christmas-time, fortunately, does not depend on
Jack Frost for _all_ its pleasures. Christmas-boxes are just as welcome
without as with his presence. And never was a Christmas-box more welcome
than one that came to a certain house by the sea one twenty-sixth of
December, now a good many years ago.

Yet it was not a very big present, nor a very uncommon present. But it
was very precious, and, to _my_ thinking, very, very pretty; for it was
a wee baby boy. Such a dear wee baby, I think you would have called it;
so neat and tiny, and with such nice baby-blue eyes. Its hands and feet,
especially, were very delightful. "_Almost_ as pretty as newly-hatched
ducklings, aren't they?" a little girl I know once said of some baby
feet that she was admiring, and I really think she was right. No wonder
was it, that the happy people in the house by the sea were very proud of
their Christmas-box, that the baby's mother, especially, thought there
never was, never could be, anything so sweet as her baby Ted.

But poor baby Ted had not long to wait for his share of the troubles
which we are told come to all, though it does seem as if some people,
and children too, had more than others. He was a very delicate little
baby. His mother did not notice it at first because, you see, he was
the first baby she had ever had of her very own, and she was too pleased
to think him anything but perfect. And indeed he _was_ perfect of his
kind, only there was so little of him! He was like one of those very,
very tiny little white flowers that one has to hunt under the hedges
for, and which surprise you by their daintiness when you look at them
closely. Only such fragile daintiness needs tender handling, and these
little half-opened buds sometimes shrink from the touch of even the
kindest of mothers and nurses, and gently fade out of their sight to
bloom in a sunnier and softer clime than ours. And knowing this, a cold
chill crept ro