In the olden days of France it was the custom for a Christian to give a Jew an Easter box.
Tableau.—Two boys, one representing the Christian, the other the Jew. The Christian must be in the act of boxing the Jew's ear.
Follow this with the France of to-day.
Tableau.—An interior of a church, extravagantly trimmed with flowers, and brilliant with lighted candles. It should be crowded with boys and girls, mothers and fathers, all in brand-new clothes.
Show Spain as a dark-haired girl, with a mantilla over her head, kneeling in a church before a mammoth candle—the Paschal candle, nine feet long. In order to make it seem taller, stand it on a marble pedestal.
Rome, with a procession of gayly attired children, and a boy representing the Pope, in the most elegant of robes, carried in a crimson chair, over which is a canopy. This chair must be preceded by two other boys, each carrying white ostrich-feather fans.
Germany, with a group of dancing girls and boys, the girls wearing small close-fitting white caps, full white aprons over dark gold-braided skirts and white sleeves; the boys with knee-breeches, white stockings, showy vests, and gold buttons. Or show a hare running from a nest filled with colored eggs, before which two little children kneel. The nest should be placed under a bush, and one of the children should wear a laughing face, for she holds up an egg.
England, with a crowd of boys and girls returning from Hampton Court, Kew Garden, or Stoke Pogis, with their arms literally filled with willow-boughs and branches of blossoms—yellow, pink, and white—with which they will decorate the church for Easter Sunday. Switzerland, with a band of musicians carrying guitars, and going from house to house singing some sweet carol, their hats and caps wreathed with flowers.
A very pretty way to amuse children of all ages is to hide eggs in the grass or under bushes, and then have an egg-hunt. All eggs found may, of course, be carried home. Give five minutes for the hunt, and it will prove great sport for lookers-on also.