It really was a most delightful little tree, set in an Indian jar, snowed over with flour, garlanded with alternate festoons of cranberries and pop-corn, and every bough laden with such treasures that if dolls could stare any harder than they do, they certainly would have opened their painted eyes with amazement and joy. Such "darling" hats, and caps; such "sweet" gowns and cloaks; such "cunning" muffs and tippets! Dressing cases as perfect as grown-up ones, I assure you; mittens that must have been knit on darning-needles; shoes of colored kid fit for a doll's Cinderella, and sets of brass and bead jewelry that glittered splendidly. Wee bottles of perfume for waxen noses; tiny horns of comfits; travelling bags, and shawl straps, evidently worked by the fairies; and underclothes which I modestly forbear to describe, merely saying that very few of the seams were puckered, and the trimmings "perfectly lovely." At the moment when Peeping Tom's profane eye beheld the innocent revel, the dolls were seated in a circle, their mammas standing behind them, while the happy little hostesses bestowed the gifts with appropriate remarks. It is needless to say that the dolls behaved beautifully, their cheeks glowing with pleasure as they returned thanks in voices so like those of their mothers that one couldn't tell the difference. The tree was soon stripped, and then the chatter began again, for every thing must be tried on at once, and more than one doll who came in shabby clothes bloomed out in gorgeous array, or was made tidy for the winter. "I'm so glad to get a worked flannel petticoat for my Jemima. Mamma was saying only yesterday that she didn't approve of show at the expense of comfort, and I knew she meant Jemmy, who hadn't a thing on but her pink silk dress and earrings," observed Mrs. Kitty, in a moral tone. "Clementina has been suffering for shoes, though her feet don't show with a train. I meant to have saved enough to buy her some, but what with limes and candy, and pencils, and fines for saying 'awful,' I do believe the poor thing would have gone bare-footed all winter, if Nell hadn't given her these beauties," replied Mrs. Alice, proudly surveying her daughter's feet in red kid boots of a somewhat triangular shape. "I couldn't make them fit very well, because the cotton is all coming out of her toes, and it was hard to measure," explained Mrs. Nell, conscious that shoemaking was not her mission. "They are just the thing; for I'm afraid my poor Clem is going to have the gout, young as she is. It is in our family, so it is well to be prepared," answered Mrs. Alice, with the beautiful forethought of a maternal heart.