DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I have never written to you before, but I love to read the letters others have sent you. You have been coming to our house nearly three years, and we all look anxiously for the 26th of the month, when you are due. You are my own book. I pay for you with money I have earned myself. My little sister wonders whenever she sees ST. NICHOLAS what the Brownies are doing in it. Mamma is much interested in "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and we like it too, and all the rest of your stories, but especially "The Gilded Boy of Florence," because we know the man who wrote it and have heard him preach. He says all he wrote in that story is true. Good-bye. Ever your faithful reader, C. LIZZIE B. * * * * * LONDON, ENGLAND. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I am an American girl who left New York four years ago, during which time I have been a constant reader of ST. NICHOLAS. My school friends who read English all want it also. You have been forwarded to me from London as far as Turkey and Egypt. And so, if you can only spare a few minutes, I would like to tell you about the pyramids and the sphinx. From Shepherd's Hotel, Cairo, it is a beautiful drive of seven miles through an archway of large trees by the side of the Nile. There are several pyramids. The chief one is said to be 463 feet high, and one would think the top would be very small; but you will no doubt be surprised to hear that the Khedive gave a dinner to twenty-four guests upon the top of a pyramid. The dinner was served in the usual manner by Arab waiters; the gentlemen walked up, while the ladies were carried up in chairs. The pyramids are built like stairs,--one stone on top the other, with only an edge for a foothold.