"Now tell me," says I, "what on earth has a minister to do with a woman's satin _cape_, all crimlicued off with gold and silk work?" I put an emphasis on the word cape, to rebuke her finefied way of pronouncing it. "It is a part of the clerical paraphernalia, and gives richness to the vestments," says she. "But the altar--I felt sure that you would be pleased with that." "Yes," says I; "the white flowers, the candles, and the evergreens were beautiful. But the red and white boy was too much for me; then his name--Acolyte--I never heard anything like it." Just then we reached home, and shivered into the house to warm ourselves. Cousin Dempster was not up yet, and that child was sound asleep. It seemed to me as if we had been downstairs a week; but there was the Christmas tree, just loaded with presents; and there was the marble man and woman, looking cold as we were. And there we stood, hungry and shivering, for the help had all gone out to "early service," and forgot to heap coal on the furnace; and the end was, we just got into our cold beds again, and shivered ourselves to sleep. I dreamed that a man, all in black and white, with a four-cornered hat on--one tassel hanging over his eyes, and another down his back--with something like a flash of fire about his neck, was burying me ten thousand feet deep in a snow-drift, and pounding me down with a candle as big round as my waist. Then it seemed to me that I got out, somehow, and was trying to warm my hands by the red frock of that boy, Acolyte, who faded into nothing before my eyes, and left me sound asleep as if I had never been to early service in my life. XIX. CHRISTMAS MORNING. We had a good long sleep after early service, and were all up bright as larks the next morning, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and waiting for that child to come down and see what Santa Claus had brought her. By and by we heard her coming. Mr. Dempster looked at his wife and smiled, as much as to say, "Won't our presents surprise her!" Cousin E. E. went to the door and opened it, looking pleased, and so like her old self that I could have kissed her. At last Cecilia came in, sour as vinegar, with her hair half combed, and her sash trailing. "Why, this is what I saw last night," says she, crossly. "Look at the foot of the tree!" says E. E., eagerly. Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself. "A doll for me! The idea!" says she. Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he: "Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll--don't be ungrateful." "Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!" "Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is your father's present." Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.