"With one and all I avow myself well content. Goodness, industry, benevolence and thrift have prevailed in your midst. Therefore, my blessing upon you; and may the New Year find all treading the paths of obedience, wisdom and love! To-morrow you shall find more substantial proofs that I have been in your home. Farewell!" With these words came a great shower of sugar-plums upon a linen sheet spread out in front of the doors. A general scramble followed. The children fairly tumbled over each other in their eagerness to fill their baskets. Mevrouw cautiously held the baby down upon the sheet till the chubby little fists were filled. Then the bravest of the youngsters sprang up and threw open the closed doors. In vain they searched the mysterious apartment. St. Nicholas was nowhere to be seen. Soon they all sped to another room, where stood a table, covered with the whitest of linen damask. Each child, in a flutter of pleasure, laid a shoe upon it, and each shoe held a little hay for the good saint's horse. The door was then carefully locked, and its key hidden in the mother's bedroom. Next followed good-night kisses, a grand family procession to the upper floor, merry farewells at bedroom doors, and silence, at last, reigned in the Van Gleck mansion. Early the next morning, the door was solemnly unlocked and opened in the presence of the assembled household; when, lo! a sight appeared, proving good St. Nicholas to be a saint of his word. Every shoe was filled to overflowing; and beside each stood a many-colored pile. The table was heavy with its load of presents,--candies, toys, trinkets, books and other articles. Every one had gifts, from grandfather down to the baby. * * * * * THE CHRISTMAS HOLLY ELIZA COOK The holly! the holly! oh, twine it with bay-- Come give the holly a song; For it helps to drive stern winter away, With his garment so sombre and long; It peeps through the trees with its berries of red, And its leaves of burnished green, When the flowers and fruits have long been dead, And not even the daisy is seen. Then sing to the holly, the Christmas holly, That hangs over peasant and king; While we laugh and carouse 'neath its glittering boughs, To the Christmas holly we'll sing. The gale may whistle, the frost may come To fetter the gurgling rill; The woods may be bare, and warblers dumb, But holly is beautiful still. In the revel and light of princely halls The bright holly branch is found; And its shadow falls on the lowliest walls, While the brimming horn goes round.