Our party has been augmented since breakfast by the arrival of several families of Donaldsons—some of whom live at too great a distance for visits at any other time than Christmas, when all who stand in any conceivable, or I was about to say inconceivable, degree of relationship to the Donaldsons of Donaldson Manor, are expected to be here. Among this host of uncles and aunts and cousins, I was really grateful for my own prefix of aunt, and I heard Mr. Arlington whisper a request to Robert to call him uncle—a title to which I have no doubt he would willingly make good his claim.

In the midst of this general hilarity, the religious character of the day was not forgotten, and all the family and some of the visitors attended the morning services in the church. We know that there are those who, doubting the testimony on which the Christian world has agreed to observe the 25th of December as the birthday into our mortal life of the world's Saviour, and the era from which man may date his hopes of a happy immortality, consider the religious observances of this day a sheer superstition. On such a controversy I could say but little, and I should be very unwilling so say that little here; but I would ask if it can be wrong in the opinion of any—nay, if it be not right, very right, in the opinion of all—to celebrate once in the year an event so solemn and so joyous to our race; and whether any day can be better for such a purpose, than that which has been for centuries associated with it wherever the Angel's song of "Peace on earth and good will to man" has been heard? Another class of objectors there are who complain that a day so sacred should be desecrated, as they express it, by revelry and mirth. To their objection I should not have a word of reply, if it were limited to a condemnation of that wild uproar and senseless jollity by which men sometimes make fools or brutes of themselves; but when they condemn the cheerfulness that has its home and its birthplace in a grateful heart, when they frown upon the happy family gathering once more within the old walls that had echoed to their childish gambols, calling up by the spells of association, from the dim recesses of the past, the very tones and looks of the mother that watched their cradled sleep, and the father that guided their first tottering steps in the pursuit of truth; tones and looks by which, if by any thing, the cold, selfish spirit of the world to whose dominion they have yielded, may be exorcised, and the loving and generous spirit of their earlier life may again enter within them; when they declare these things inconsistent with the Christian's joyful commemoration of that event to which he owes his earthly blessings as well as his heavenly hopes. I can only pity them for their want of harmony with the Great Spirit of the Universe, the spirit of Love and Joy.

Our Christmas was continued and concluded in the same spirit in which it was commenced—the spirit of kindly affection to Man and devout gratitude to Heaven. Those guests whose homes were distant remained for the night, and in the evening, before any of our party had left us, Col. Donaldson called on Robert Dudley to repeat a poem winch he had learned at his request for the occasion. Robert was a little abashed at first at being brought forward so conspicuously; but he is a manly, intelligent boy, and his voice soon gathered strength and firmness, and his eyes lost their downward tendency, and kindled with earnest feeling, as he recited those beautiful lines of Charles Sprague, entitled—

[THE FAMILY MEETING.]

We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
All who hold each other dear.
Each chair is fill'd, we're all at home,
To-night let no cold stranger come;
It is not often thus around
Our own familiar hearth we're found.
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot;
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind affection rule the hour;
We're all—all here.
We're not all here!
Some are away—the dead ones dear,
Who throng'd with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Look'd in and thinn'd our little band:
Some like a night-flash pass'd away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day;
The quiet grave-yard—some lie there—
And cruel Ocean has his share—
We're not all here.
We are all here!
Even they—the dead—though dead so dear.
Fond Memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How life-like, through the mist of years,
Each well-remember'd face appears!
We see them as in times long past,
From each to each kind looks are cast,
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old—
We are all here.
We are all here!
Father, mother,
Sister, brother,
You that I love with love so dear.
This may not long of us be said,
Soon must we join the gather'd dead,
And by the hearth we now sit round
Some other circle will be found.
Oh, then, that wisdom may we know,
Which yields a life of peace below!
So, in the world to follow this,
May each repeat, in words of bliss.
We're all—all here!

[CHAPTER XI.]

Yesterday we were more than usually still after the enjoyment of Christmas, and a little quiet chit-chat seemed all of which we were capable, but to-day every thing about us and within us began to settle into its usual form, and this evening there was a general call for our accustomed entertainment. I was inexorable to all entreaties, and Mr. Arlington was compelled to open his portfolio for our gratification.

"Select your subject," he said with a smile, as he drew forth sketch after sketch and spread them on the table before us. "I have no story to tell of any of them."

"I select this," said Annie, as she held up a drawing, entitled, "The Exiled Hebrews."