Christmas morning came, clear and brilliant, with frosty sunlight, and Mrs. Dryden, as was her custom, tapped at the children’s door, having beforehand stealthily unclosed it far enough to allow herself and her accomplice a view of the interior of the dormitory. “Come, little birds, it is time you were out of your nests!” The cheery, loving voice aroused the sleepers more thoroughly than sterner accents would have done. The mother was spared the pain of knowing that the novelty of the address made it so efficacious. “Yes, Mamma!” answered Nettie, starting up in bed. “All right!” responded Ally, and he turned over. Thus it happened that the eyes of both rested simultaneously upon an object in the centre of the apartment, and a ringing cry of joy escaped them. “Nettie, Santa Claus _did_ come!” “Ally, don’t you know what I prayed for?” They were upon the floor before the words had left their lips. The next few minutes were passed in speechless admiration of the miraculous edifice that had arisen during their hours of unconsciousness. Mr. Dryden had made a second trip to the street, the night before, to buy a Christmas tree. A broad, flat box, covered with a white cloth, formed the base upon which this was set. The larger toys were placed around the trunk, and smaller ones hung among the gilt balls, flags, and flowers, that decked the boughs. Miss Dolly sat at the root upon one of her new chairs, her foot upon the rocker of the new cradle, and, perched up in the topmost branches, was Santa Claus--white beard, pipe, pack, and all--smiling broadly upon his enraptured devotees. Nettie broke the spell of ecstatic silence. “Dear Mamma! Papa, darling!” she screamed. “Come and see! It is just like fairy-land!” And flying to the door, her curls streaming back, and her face fairly luminous with delight, she ran directly into her parents’ arms. “Christmas shall be an ‘institution’ in our family, hereafter!” said Mr. Dryden, that night, when the happy children had kissed them “good-night” over and over again. “I am a better man for last evening’s work and this day’s innocent frolic. I feel twenty years younger, and fifty degrees happier. It pays, my dear--_it pays!_” A Christmas Talk With Mothers. [Illustration] A Christmas Talk with Mothers. “I do not approve of lady lecturers, as a general thing,” I remarked meditatively, a while since, to a gentleman, in whose presence I am somewhat prone to think aloud. “You allude to _public_ lectures?” said he, interrogatively, with unnecessary emphasis. “Of course!” “Oh!” and he resumed the study of a very dry-looking volume. Affecting not to observe the mischievous gleam of his eye, I resumed:--