Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY. [Illustration: DAILY BREAD.--PAGE 120.] CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY. Ten Christmas Stories. BY EDWARD E. HALE, AUTHOR OF "TEN TIMES ONE IS TEN," ETC. _WITH ILLUSTRATION BY F. O. C. DARLEY_. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1873. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by EDWARD E. HALE, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CAMBRIDGE: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. PREFACE. This is a collection of ten Christmas Stories, some of which have been published before. I have added a little essay, written on the occasion of the first Christmas celebrated by the King of Italy in Rome. The first story has never before been published. It is but fair to say that I have not drawn on imagination for Laura's night duty, alone upon her island. This is simply the account of what a brave New-England woman did, under like circumstances, because it was the duty next her hand. If any reader observes a resemblance between her position and that of a boy in another story in this volume, I must disarm censure, by saying, that she had never heard of him when she was called to this duty, and that I had never heard of her when I wrote his story. E. E. H. CONTENTS. THEY SAW A GREAT LIGHT 1 CHRISTMAS WAITS IN BOSTON 40 ALICE'S CHRISTMAS-TREE 74 DAILY BREAD 98 STAND AND WAIT 140 THE TWO PRINCES 188 THE STORY OF OELLO 205 LOVE IS THE WHOLE 218 CHRISTMAS AND ROME 232 THE SURVIVOR'S STORY 238 THE SAME CHRISTMAS IN OLD ENGLAND AND NEW 263 THEY SAW A GREAT LIGHT. CHAPTER I. ANOTHER GENERATION. "Here he comes! here he comes!" "He" was the "post-rider," an institution now almost of the past. He rode by the house and threw off a copy of the "Boston Gazette." Now the "Boston Gazette," of this particular issue, gave the results of the drawing of the great Massachusetts State Lottery of the Eastern Lands in the Waldo Patent.