Our preparations for Christmas have to begin several weeks beforehand. Our idea has never been to prepare a big banquet to which the hungry are bidden for one good meal. Many of our families are out of town or scattered from one end to the other of this long island, and even could we gather them all together, we want our help to be more lasting. The Christmas tree decked for the children is a treat always enjoyed by little ones, but even that sends them back to a very gloomy home that seems all the colder with its fireless stove and empty cupboard, after the glitter and brightness of the festivity. Our idea is to make the home, poor though it may be, the centre of rejoicing. By visiting beforehand and by our close knowledge of the circumstances, we can tell just the needs of each family and can prepare accordingly. Our plan is to give to each child one good suit of clothing,--to provide a supply of groceries, a turkey and money sufficient for fuel and vegetables. Some needed article of clothing for the mother is added and then toys and candies for the children. We could hardly send the mothers instructions to hang up the stockings for us to fill, for sometimes the nuts, candy and oranges, would drop through these much-worn articles, and often there would be no stockings to hang up. We therefore buy stockings wholesale and fill them at our office. Not only do we attach its mate to each filled stocking, but we add another pair so that every child may have a change. I could not speak of the need of the Christmas season without speaking also of the way our friends have helped us to meet it. The girls of Vassar and Smith Colleges have year after year dressed dolls and collected toys for us. Many of the children in happy homes have done likewise, as also in some of the private schools. Boxes containing these gifts commence arriving in the weeks before Christmas and each new supply is received with acclamation by the little staff of workers who know the joy that it will bring to the hearts of our Christmasless little ones. The chapter of "King's Daughters and Sons of Hartford, Connecticut"--organized three years ago to help my work, is especially generous in its Christmas effort. Barrels of clothing and toys can always be relied on to come from that source, and so much personal work and careful thought is expended on the gifts that they seem doubly valuable.