“No, papa,” said the little, grave girl, seriously, shaking her head solemnly, “no, it is not that. I think it’s because we have another to be good and do right in. Isn’t that it, Aunt Christian?” And the little girl looked over to her aunt inquiringly, to see if her childish conclusion was a correct one. “Just so, my dear,” was Aunt Christian’s answer, as Halbert patted the child’s soft cheek, and then permitted her to make her way over to her accustomed seat. The children were gathered now about their parents’ knees, and even wild Halbert Hamilton was silent and attentive. “Yes, children,” said the kind father and uncle, as he looked round upon them, “yes, children, there is a better reason for being glad than even having plenty of fun. There is a new year to be good in, as little Christian says, a new year to live and learn in. It is true that, perhaps, you may not see its end; but, nevertheless, it is the beginning of a new year with many opportunities, both of doing and receiving good, and therefore we should be glad, and we _should_ ask God to make us His faithful servants, loving Him and keeping His commandments all through this year, and if God does that you may be sure this will be a very happy new year to us all. Well, Halbert,” he continued, turning to his son, who was back again by Aunt Christian’s side, “has little Christian satisfied you?” Halbert’s face and conscience were both quite cleared; it was right to be glad on a new year’s day, and he got a promise that that night he should hear some of the many things which had happened on former new years’ days, and had made that day a special anniversary in the family; and besides, the relation of these things was to be committed to Aunt Christian, therefore Halbert was quite satisfied. And then the seniors closed round the fireside, and all the children--with the exception of Halbert Melville and Mary Hamilton, the eldest of the two families, who hang by Aunt Christian still--sought more active amusement in the farther corners of the room, and recollections of those bygone years became the long lingered on subject with Halbert, Charles, Christian, and the two Marys; and they looked back with half-wondering gaze upon the past, as men look through the wondrous glass of science on the clear outline of some far distant shore, of which the human dwellers, the fears and hopes, the loves and sorrows, which people the farther sides of the blue slopes that yet linger in their view, have all faded from their retiring vision.