There were four family festivals which Peregrine celebrated with infinite solemnity; and these were the birth-days of his father and mother, Easter, and his own day of christening. At these times Alina had to set out a table for as many persons as his father had been wont to invite, with the same wine and dishes which had been usually served up on those occasions. Of course the same silver, the same plates, the same glasses, such as had then been used, and such as they still remained, were now brought forward, in the fashion which had prevailed for so many years. Peregrine kept to this strictly. Was the table ready? He sat down to it alone, ate and drank but little, listened to the conversation of his parents, and the imaginary guests, and replied modestly to this or that question as it was directed to him by any one of the company. Did his mother put back her seat? he too rose with the rest, and took his leave of each with great courtesy. Then he retired to a distant chamber, and consigned to Alina the division of the wine and the many untasted dishes amongst the poor; which command of her master, the faithful soul was wont to execute most conscientiously. The celebration of the two birth-days he began early in the morning, that, according to the custom of his boyhood, he might carry a handsome nosegay into the room where his parents used to breakfast, and repeat verses which he had got by heart for the occasion. On his own day of christening, he naturally could not sit at table, as he had not then been long born; Alina, therefore, had to attend to every thing, that is, to invite people to drink, and, in the general phrase, to do the honours of the table: with this exception, every thing was the same as at the other festivals. But in addition to these, Peregrine had yet another holiday in the year, or rather holy evening, and that was Christmas Eve, with its gifts, which had excited his youthful fancy more than any other pleasure. He himself carefully purchased the motley Christmas lights, the playthings, the sweetmeats, just as his parents had presented them to him in his childish years; and then the presentation took place, as the kind reader has already seen. "It is very vexatious," said Peregrine, after having played with them some time--"it is very vexatious that the stag and wild boar hunt should be missing. Where can they be? Ah, look there!"--At this moment he perceived a little box which still remained unopened, and hastily snatched at it, expecting to recover the missing treasure. But on opening it he found it empty, and started back as if a sudden fright had seized him.--"Strange!" he murmured to himself; "strange! What is the matter with this box? It seems as if some fearful thing sprang out upon me, that my eye was too dull to grapple with."