"Christmas presents!" said Matilda.
"Yes; we always have a great time. Only David and Judy do scowl; it is fun to see them."
"Don't they like Christmas presents?" said Matilda, very much bewildered.
"Christmas presents all right; but not Christmas. You know they are Jews."
"Jews?" said Matilda. "What then? What has their being Jews to do with it?"
"Why!" said Norton, "don't you know? Do you think Jews love Christmas? You forget what Christmas is, don't you?"
"O—I remember. They don't believe in Christ," said Matilda in an awed and sorrowful tone.
"Of course. And that's a mild way to put it," rejoined Norton. "But grandmamma will always keep Christmas with all her might, and aunt Judy too; just because Davie and Judy don't like it, I believe. So we have times."
"But how comes it they don't like what you all like, and their mother?" Matilda asked.
"They have Jew relations, you see," said Norton; "and that goes very much against the grain with aunt Judy. There is some old Rabbi here in New York that is David's great uncle and makes much of him; and so David has been taught about Jewish things, and told, I suppose, that he must never forget he is a Jew; and he don't, I guess. Not often."