Mechanically she counted the bundles and checked them off her list: the ones for Holland, for Joyce, for Eugenia, the bunny doll with the chamois skin head which she had made for little Patricia. She was very well satisfied with them all, as well as with the fancy trifles she had made for Lloyd and Betty and the girls at school, with whom she still kept up a correspondence. They were inexpensive, but they were original and appropriate. Allowing for the crowded condition of the mails, she decided that the packages which had the longest distance to go should be started that very day. These she took from the drawer and piled on her bed, and then got out her pen to begin the writing of her Christmas letters. Now one may make all sorts of dainty gifts, and tie them with holly ribbon, and send them away in Christmasy looking packages which will bring a glow to the heart of the one who opens them, and yet do it all without one spark of festal feeling herself. But it is impossible to write a Christmas letter and put the proper zest into its greetings, unless one is a-tingle with it. When Mary discovered that fact, she tore up the sheets on which she had made various beginnings, and put the cork in her ink-bottle. "I can't do it any more than I could keep Thanksgiving on the Fourth of July or New Year's on April Fool's day," she thought. "Luckily the letters travel faster than second-class mail, so I'll take my packages to the post-office now, and then go out in the boat awhile, and think about snow and sleigh-bells and holly berries till I work myself up to the proper mood." As she started out of the door her mother called to her to remind her that they needed eggs. That meant that Mary was to go around by the Metz place to get them on her way home, which would take so much longer that there wouldn't be much time for meditation in the boat. But it was in going for the eggs that she came across the very inspiration of which she was in quest. Mr. Metz and his wife were sitting on a bench in the sunny garden near the kitchen door, when Mary opened the gate. Looking up the path between the stiff rows of coxcombs and prince's feather, she could see that the old lady was knitting, as usual. He sat with a newspaper across his knees, and his spectacles folded in one hand. The other grasped the end of his long white beard which flowed almost to his lap.