There was no rector in the parish that winter; but the people kept up lay-services and the Sunday school, and were resolved that the children should not go without the usual festival. So the evergreens were brought from the lake, with a beautiful pine-tree, and a few of the ladies worked industriously, day after day, fashioning wreaths and crosses and anchors, which were hung upon the walls and festooned about the chancel, where the tree was placed, its long branches reaching out in every direction, as if asking for the many hundred gifts which came pouring in so fast. There were dolls and tops, and bows and arrows, and Christmas cakes all sugared over the top, and stamped with the owner’s name. There were books and cards, and marbles and balls, and a beautiful slipper-case, which Lulu gave to her teacher. There were boxes with candy and boxes without, and horses and cows, and monkeys in red, and tea-kettles and pails, and golden fishes, which gleamed so brightly among the dark-green leaves of the tree. There was a white ermine muff, and a picture called the “Christmas Bell,” bought for Berkie’s mother by her class; while, swinging in his pretty cage, was a beautiful Canary, who, when the gas was lighted and he had recovered a little from his fright at being brought from the depot with a shawl over his cage, began to look about him, and wink his bright eyes at the children. Then, as he began to feel more at home and to get an inkling of what it all meant, he opened his mouth and poured forth one sweet song after another until it seemed as if his little throat would burst. But the handsomest gift of all was the font, which had come the night before and been firmly fixed in its place just outside the chancel. It was of Italian marble, very graceful in its proportions, and on the top, in black letters, were the words “Presented by the children of St. Luke’s Sunday School, Christmas, 1867,” followed by “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.” This was, of course, the center of attraction, and both the children and the grown people gathered around it, commenting on its beauty, and wondering who would be the first child baptized from it. The new chairs, too, were there, made of solid oak, and upholstered with crimson, so that the church looked very handsome with its new furniture, and the Christmas-tree, with the tapers shining from its branches and lighting up the hundreds of pretty things upon it. I have told you before that we had no clergyman; but our good doctor read a part of the evening service, and then made a few remarks to the children, who, I am afraid, did not listen very closely, they were so intent upon the tree and what they would probably get from it. Our organist had taken great pains to drill the children in their carols, and when they sang of “The Wonderful Night,” we could almost see the