"You have painted the flower vase for her?" he asked. Brigitta nodded. "It is exclusively for roses," she said, "and the colours are burned in and will stand any kind of weather." "What the boys have made for Mamma they can bring her themselves. Have you put down the presents from her?" Surely she had done so. For Fritz, there was a fishing-net and a ten-bladed knife; for Arthur a turning lathe with foot-power, and in addition a tall toy ship with a golden-haired nymph as figurehead. "The mermaid will make an impression," said Papa and laughed. There was something else which Brigitta had on her conscience. She stuck her firm little hands under her apron, which fell straight down over her flat little chest, and tripped up and down on her heels. "I may as well betray the secret," she said. "Mamma has something for you, too." Papa was all ear. "What is it?" he asked, and looked over his place at the table, where nothing was noticeable in addition to Brigitta's fancy work. Brigitta ran to the piano and pulled forth from under it a paper wrapped box, about two feet in height, which seemed singularly light for its size. When the paper wrappings had fallen aside, a wooden cage appeared, in which sat a stuffed bird that glittered with all the colours of the rainbow. His plumage looked as though the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun had been caught in it. "A roller!" Papa cried, clapping his hands, and something like joy twitched about his mouth. "And she gives me this rare specimen?" "Yes," said Brigitta, "it was found last autumn in the throstle springe. The manager kept it for me until now. And because it is so beautiful, and, one might really say, a kind of bird of paradise, therefore Mamma gives it to you." Papa stroked her blonde hair and again her face flushed. "So; and now we'll call the boys," he said. "First let me put away my apron," she cried, loosened the pin and threw the ugly black thing under the piano where the cage had been before. Now she stood there in her white communion dress, with its blue ribands, and made a charming little grimace. "You have done quite right," said Papa. "Mamma does not like dark colours. Everything about her is to be bright and gay." Now the boys were permitted to come in. They held their beautifully written Christmas poems carefully in their hands and rubbed their sides timidly against the door-posts. "Come, be cheerful," said Papa. "Do you think your heads will be torn off to-day?" And then he took them both into his arms and squeezed them a little so that Arthur's poetry was crushed right down the middle. That was a misfortune, to be sure. But Papa consoled the boy, saying that he would be responsible since it was his fault. Brueggemann, the long, lean private tutor, now stuck his head in the door, too. He had on his most solemn long coat, nodded sadly like one bidden to a funeral, and sniffed through his nose: "Yes--yes--yes--yes--"