their every-day cares, into the brighter world of fiction and poesy. In the recess on one side is a small library, comfortable enough to entice the student from the merry group so near him; on the other, is a room looked upon with great affection by the juvenile members of the family, for here does Aunt Lucy manufacture and keep for distribution those delicious cakes, never to be refused at lunch time; and those pies, jellies, whips, and creams, which promise to carry down her name to posterity as the very nonpareil of housekeepers. Three persons are sitting in the room, whom in common politeness I should introduce to the reader: very pleasant people are they to know and to visit. Uncle John and Aunt Lucy Wyndham, the master and mistress of the house, are remarkable for kindness, and make their nephews and nieces, and whole troops of friends, feel perfectly at home at once; they are Uncle John and Aunt Lucy to all their young acquaintances, and delight in the title. Perhaps they would not have been generally called so, had they any children of their own; but they have none, and the only young person in the house at present is Mary Dalton--Cousin Mary--an orphan niece of Mrs. Wyndham, whom they have brought up from a child. She looks like her aunt, plump, rosy, good natured and sensible; she is just seventeen, and very popular with the whole cousinhood. She has many accomplishments: she does not talk French, Spanish, or Italian, but she knows how to play every game that ever was invented, can tell stories to suit every age, can soothe a screaming child sooner than any one else, can rattle off cotillions on the piano-forte of a winter's evening without thinking it hard that she cannot join in the dance; and lastly, can lay down an interesting book or piece of crochet work to run on an errand for Aunt, or untangle the bob-tails of a kite, without showing any signs of crossness. Self is a very subordinate person with her, and indeed she seems hardly to realize her separate individuality; she is everybody's Cousin Mary, and frowns vanish, and smiles brighten up the countenance, wherever she appears. A very happy looking group they are, but restless, this afternoon of the 24th of December; Uncle John frequently goes to the hall door; Aunt Lucy lays down her knitting to listen; and Cousin Mary does not pretend to read the book she holds, but gazes out of the window, down the long avenue of elms, as if she expected an arrival. Old Caesar, "the last of the servants," as Mr. Wyndham styles him, a white-haired negro who was born in the house, and is devoted to the family, always speaking of _our_ house, _our_ carriage, and _our_ children, as if he were chief owner, vibrates constantly between the kitchen and the porter's lodge, feeling it to be his especial duty and prerogative to give the first welcome to the guests.