“Does your servant not go with us, Hamilton?” asked Zedwitz.
“He is to follow with Madame Rosenberg’s letter to-morrow. Be sure to bring the letter, Hans!” said Hamilton, as he wrapped himself in his cloak, and sank back in the corner of the carriage.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LONG DAY.
Hamilton could not help feeling flattered at the evident pleasure which his return caused to every member of the Rosenberg family. The two little boys began immediately to tell him that the Christmas-tree was expected the next day. Gustle said that he had written a list of all the toys he wished for, had placed it under his pillow, and that the little child Christ had come for it and carried it off; “So, you see, I must have been very good, or he would not have taken the list, and I shall get all the things I wrote for.”
“And,” said Peppy, “mamma met the infant Christ in the Ludwig Street, and he asked if I had been a good child, and when mamma said yes, he promised to fly into the nursery to-morrow evening and light the candles, and bring me a gun, and a cart, and bon-bons, and gingerbread.”
“To-morrow is Christmas-eve,” said Madame Rosenberg, “a great day with us. Captain Smith told me that you do not celebrate it in the same manner as we do. As to Gustle,” she added in a whisper, “he is a cunning little fellow, and only half believes what he says, but Peppy has still all the innocent faith of childhood. I, for my own part, firmly believed that Jesus gave me all my Christmas presents until I was nearly ten years old; but children now are not so easily made to believe what we say.”
“I don’t quite like this idea,” said Hamilton. “Speaking in this way seems to me to be irreverent, and must oblige you to tell the children a number of untruths.”
“Ah, bah!” cried Madame Rosenberg, laughing, “you are all too particular in this respect.”
“I think,” said her husband, “that as long as they can believe it, they may, and when they cease to do so, they naturally think that it is God who has given us the means of gratifying their wishes, and so the gifts after all come from him.”