'Wall, of all things!' said Uncle Eb, looking over his spectacles from
one to another.

'It's from the Livingstone boy,' said Mrs Brower. 'I've heard he's the
son of a rich man.'

''Fraid he took a great fancy t' Hope,' said David.

'Father,' said the girl, you've no right to say that. I'm sure he never
cared a straw for me.'

'I don't think we ought to keep it,' said Mrs Brower, looking up
thoughtfullyy.

'Shucks and shavin's!' said Uncle Eb. 'Ye don't know but what I had it
sent myself.'

Hope went over and put her arms around his neck.

'Did you, Uncle Eb?' she asked. 'Now you tell me the truth, Uncle Eb.'

'Wouldn't say 't I did,' he answered, 'but I don' want 'a see ye go
sendin' uv it back. Ye dunno who sent it.'

'What'll I do with it?' Mrs Brower asked, laughing in a way that showed
a sense of absurdity. 'I'd a been tickled with it thirty years ago, but
now-folks 'ud think I was crazy.'

'Never heard such fol de rol,' said Uncle Eb. 'If ye move t' the village
it'll come handy t' go t' meetin' in.'

That seemed to be unanswerable and conclusive, at least for the time
being, and the silk was laid away. We sat talking until late bedtime,
Hope and I, telling of our studies and of the many people we had met in
Hillsborough.

We hung up our stockings just as we had always done Christmas Eve, and
were up betimes in the morning to find them filled with many simple but
delightful things, and one which I treasure to this day--the locket and
its picrure of which I had been surreptitiously informed.

At two o'clock we had a fine dinner of roast turkey and chicken pie,
with plenty of good cider, and the mince pie, of blessed memory, such as
only a daughter of New England may dare try to make.

Uncle Eb went upstairs after dinner and presently we heard him
descending with a slow and heavy foot I opened the stair door and there
he stood with the old bass viol that had long lain neglected in a dusty
corner of the attic. Many a night I had heard it groan as the strings
loosened, in the years it had lain on its hack, helpless and forgotten.
It was like a dreamer, snoring in his sleep, and murmuring of that
he saw in his dreams. Uncle Eb had dusted and strung it and glued its
weaker joints. He sat down with it' the severe look of old upon his
face, and set the strings roaring as he tuned them. Then he brought the
sacred treasure to me and leaned it against my shoulder.

'There that's a Crissmus present fer ye,