He passed the reins into my hands, and leaped over the wheel. Making his way down the hill, he stopped to talk with the workmen for ten minutes. Then he came back, held up a hand to help me out of the carriage, and lifted “Brownie” in his arms. Next, he tied the horse to a tree, and, saying to me—“Come!” led the way to the lake. We bought the tract, in imagination, and decided upon the site of our cottage, in the next half-hour. On the way home we called upon the owner of the tract, paid a hundred dollars down to bind the bargain, and left orders that not another tree was to be felled until further notice. It would have been expecting too much of human nature had we been required to go back to the farm-house dinner, without driving again by “Our Land.” The happy silence of the second survey culminated in my declaration and the instant assent of my companion to the same: “And we will name it ‘_Sunnybank_’!” XLII A CHRISTMAS REUNION—A MIDNIGHT WARNING—HOW A GOOD MAN CAME TO “THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE” “SKIES bright, and brightening!” was the clan watchword, in passing along the summons for a rally in the old home at Christmas-time, 1866, that should include three generations of the name and blood. On Sunday, December 23d, we attended church in a body, in morning and afternoon. Not one was missing from the band except my brother Herbert, whose professional duties detained him over Sunday. He was pledged to be with us early on Monday morning. That evening, we grouped about the fire in the parlor, a wide circle that left room for the babyest of the party to disport themselves upon the rug, in the glow of the grate piled with cannel coal. My father, entering last of all, stooped to pick up a granddaughter and kiss her, in remarking: “I had intended to go down to hear Doctor Moore to-night. I am very fond of him as man and preacher. But”—a comprehensive glance around the room, pointing the demurrer—“you look so comfortable here that I am tempted to change my mind.” A chorus of entreaties broke forth. It had been so long since we had had—“all of us together—a Sunday evening at home; there was so much to talk of; Christmas was so near; the night was damp and raw; there would be snow by ten o’clock,” etc.—all in a breath, until the dear man put his hands to his ears, ready to promise anything and everything, for the sake of peace. This was before supper, a jolly meal, over which we lingered until the mothers of the company had to hustle the younglings off to bed by the time we left the table.