rich flowers and gift-fruit. At nine o'clock the
work of arranging the Christmas tree begins. The ladies retire, and
after a quiet smoke by the roaring hall-fire the gentlemen follow
suit. To bed, but not to sleep. Jack Parker is the first man ready,
and bounces into the best bed to secure the softest place; but the
bars have been skillfully removed, and he is the centre of a rather
mixed pile on the floor. I feel another, to be sure that all is right,
and slip cozily between the sheets, but some graceless little wretch
has placed a walking-cane "athwart-ships," which nearly breaks my
back. None escape. Some find their sheets strewed with chaff or
cockle-burs, some find no sheets at all. At midnight a fearful roar
comes from the girls' room, followed by pretty shrieks and terrible
confusion; but it is only the old Cochin rooster, which was slyly shut
up in the empty chimney-place before they retired, indulging in his
first crow.

Daylight puts an end to all sleep, for the boys are on the piazza
ready to welcome Christmas with innumerable packages of fire-crackers.
We rise to find our pantaloons sewed up, our boots stuffed with wet
cotton, our tooth-brushes dusted with quinine and our _cafe noir_
sweetened with salt. These practical jokes are all taken in good
part and made to contribute to the jollity of the season. At
the breakfast-table lumps of cracked marble serve admirably for
loaf-sugar, except that the hottest coffee will not dissolve them, and
boiled eggs tempt the appetite only to disappoint with their sawdust
filling. Then all assemble on the piazza to witness the merriment
of the crowd of negroes who have assembled to claim little gifts of
tobacco and sugar and to receive the annual glass of whisky which a
time-honored custom bestows. The liquor is served in a wine-glass, and
swallowed eagerly by men, women and boys from ten years old upward.
Then they disperse to get their portion of the Christmas beef which
has been slaughtered for their special benefit, and we prepare for
service at the parish church, which stands among the shadows of the
old forest oaks an easy walk from the house. There the solemn services
temper and soften, but do not check or lessen, the joy and good-will
which so well become the season, and which find their appropriate
manifestation in all kinds of innocent amusement. The religious and
the social observances of the day react each upon the other, and
harmonize most admirably in the i