aws working tremendously and their blue eyes
opening and shutting in unison, whilst he told them of the dreadful
unnamed things that would befall them if they ventured again through
that door. He impressed on them the calamity it would be to lose the
privilege of holding the evergreens whilst they were being put up in the
hall, and the danger of Santa Claus passing by that night without
filling their stockings.

The picture he drew of two little stockings hanging limp and empty at
the fireplace while Santa Claus went by with bulging sleigh was
harrowing.

At mention of it, the tots both looked down at their stockings and were
so overcome that they almost stopped working their jaws, so that when
they began again they were harder to work than ever. To this James added
the terror of their failing to see next day the great plum-pudding
suddenly burst into flame in his hands. At this, he threw up both hands
and opened them so wide that the little ones had to look first at one of
his hands and then at the other to make sure that he was not actually
holding the dancing flames now.

When they had promised faithfully and with deep awe, crossing their
little hearts with smudgy fingers, the butler entrusted them to some one
to see to the due performance of their good intention, and he himself
sought the cook, who, next to himself, was Livingstone's oldest servant.
She was at the moment, with plump arms akimbo on her stout waist, laying
down the law of marriage to a group of merry servants as they sorted
Christmas wreaths.

"Wait till you've known a man twenty years before you marry him, and
then you'll never marry him," she said. The point of her advice being
that she was past forty and had never married.

The butler beckoned her out and confided to her his anxiety.

"He is not well," he said gloomily. "I have not see him this a-way in
ten years. He is not well."

The cook's cheery countenance changed.

"But you say he have had no dinner." Her excessive grammar was a
reassurance. She turned alertly towards her range.

"But he won't have dinner."

"What!" The stiffness went out of her form in visible detachments. "Then
he air sick!"

She made one attempt to help matters. "Can't I make him something nice?
Very nice?--And light?" She brightened at the hope.

"No, nothink. He will not hear to it."

"Then you must have the doctor." She spoke decisively.

To this the butler made no reply, at least in words. He stood wr