"We have still got the giblets," said the maid, in a soothing tone. They all laughed, and at that moment the letter carrier came up the stair. He brought the country newspaper. The Pastor hastily looked over the clerical intelligence, and there, sure enough, he saw that the living in Odenwald, for which he had applied, had been given away to another clergyman, a much younger man, and one of the new fashioned stiff necked species. "You see here is another empty hook," said the Pastor, giving the newspaper to his wife, and pointing out the paragraph to her. Along with the newspaper was a letter from their uncle, the President, announcing the appointment of another to the living, but that there was great anxiety to induce our Pastor to take a charge in the Capital. "I shall refuse, and remain here," said the Pastor, abruptly. The cook of the Parsonage, who went to the inn in order to buy some meat to replace the missing goose, had two pieces of news to spread abroad which had no great connexion certainly, but which she mixed up together in the most singular manner: the stolen goose, and the Pastor staying in the village. The bells rung out in soft melodious peals in the bright light; this ringing on Christmas-day is appropriately termed a "lullaby." When the Pastor again entered the church he found the villagers assembled, and crowded together from the door of the Parsonage all the way to the church, and they all saluted their Pastor kindly, in token of their gratitude and joy, that he was now to remain till the day of his death in this parish. While the organ sounded in the church, a figure, closely muffled in a cloak, glided past the kitchen of the Vicarage, and unexpectedly a fat goose was once more suspended by its legs on the hook outside the window. Was it the stolen one or another? was it the thief restoring what he had taken, or some good hearted person replacing it by another? This could never be ascertained. The cook declared that she knew how to shut her eyes, that she had neither recognized the person, nor did she wish to do so. She was, however, so overjoyed, that she hurried to the vestry, to tell the Pastor that there was no occasion for him to preach about the stolen goose, for it was come back. She did not venture to go into the vestry, and went home again. "He is too sensible a man," said she, "to preach about a goose," and there she was perfectly right.