"I should love to see it," the little fellow said, after a few moments' silence. "Will you surely take me?" "Yes, indeed, if the other little cousins go," his mother replied. "When I was a little girl, like your Aunt Marya here," she continued, glancing at her young sister, "I went to the celebration. And you will open your eyes wide, Jan, I'll tell you that." "Oh, goody, I wish it was the twenty-fourth of June now." "But we have the Christmas season now," his grandfather spoke up. "That is much better, for we are all together. We have the fine snow for sleighing and snowballing. We have the ponds to skate upon, and we have--the Jaselki." "What's that?" little Jan asked. "Jan, dear," his mother said, "please do not ask so many questions. Let your grandfather finish before you interrupt." "But he says so many things I don't know anything about," the child answered. "That is right, Martha," Mr. Ostrowski said, "let the little chap learn. Of course he doesn't know what the Jaselki are, for he is too little to know everything. But that is a secret, Jan," the grandfather continued, as he shook a gentle finger at the boy. "You will see something wonderful at this Christmas season." The maid entered; she said a few words in a low tone to Mrs. Ostrowska, and left the room. "How we have lingered!" the grandmother said, as she rose from her seat at the table. "Brother Paul has been waiting some little time. Let us all rise to greet him!" As they obeyed, the door at the farther end of the long dining-room opened, and a monk, clad in a long black robe with a girdle of rope about his waist, stood upon the threshold. In his hand he held his black beaver hat, and under his arm was a small package upon which the children kept their eyes assiduously glued. "Welcome, Brother Paul," Mr. Ostrowski said as he greeted the monk. "The little folks have been in a fever of impatience; you are well come." "I hear the same story in every home," the monk replied, as he turned and smiled at the row of happy faces. "They are all anxious for their oplatki." "Let us go into the library," Mr. Ostrowski said, as he threw open the heavy doors communicating with that room; "the fire burns brightly there, and you must be cold." "It certainly is raw without," the monk replied. "We are to have a long, hard winter, I fear." "We just arrived this morning, Brother Paul," Mrs. Teczynska said. "We had a dreadfully cold ride from Cracow. I thought little Jan's nose would be nipped." "Come here, son, and let's see if Jack Frost got away with any of it," the monk said. The little fellow obeyed with a very serious face. He had quite an awe for the brotherhood; he held up his face for inspection. "I believe it's all there," the brother laughingly said, as he examined the boy's serious face. "But you had a narrow escape."