In the evening, the little ones play blind-man's-bluff, or hunt-the-slipper. Sometimes Jack Frost steals down from the North, and pinches them. But he does not stay long. He likes his northern home best.
Uncle Harry.
THE CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.
Mr. D. had promised to give his wife a beautiful rattan rocking-chair as a Christmas present. It was his employment to sell these articles. In due time, Mrs. D. called at his place of business, and selected a chair; but, as she sat enjoying it for a few minutes, a new idea came into her mind, and she told her husband that she would gladly do without her present, if he would give Jennie and Alice (their two little daughters) each a chair.
Her husband agreed to this; and on Christmas Eve he took home with him two elegant little rocking-chairs. Leaving them in his garden, he went in to tea, and, after taking his seat at the table, said to his children, "I have a story to tell you, and it is a true story. Would you like to hear it?"
Of course they were all eager to do so. So he said, "There was a lady in my store to-day, whose husband had promised to make her a Christmas present of a rocking-chair. After she had selected a very nice one, she turned to her husband, and said, 'If you will give each of our children a chair, I will forego the pleasure of having mine.' Now, wasn't she truly kind?"