"See here, my son," said Anthony, hurriedly finishing his coffee, "let's see if you can't appreciate some of your less voiceful toys. Here's a rabbit with fine soft ears for you to pull. There's a train of cars. Let me wind it for you. Your Grandfather Marcy must have expended several good dollars on that--you want to show up an interest in it when he comes out to see you to-day. And here's Auntie Dingley's pickaninny boy-doll--well, I don't blame you for failing to embrace that. Auntie Dingley was born in Massachusetts." [Illustration: "Toys which can be relied upon to please a twenty months old infant."] The boy cast an indifferently polite eye on these gifts as their charms were exhibited to him, and clasped the brown and scarlet rooster to his breast. There were moments, half hours even, when he became sufficiently diverted from his fowl to cease from making it crow, but at intervals throughout the day the family were given to understand once for all that it is not the most expensive and ornate toys which can be relied upon to please a twenty-months-old infant. Even the automobile presented by Dr. Roger Barnes, and warranted to go three times around the room without stopping, was a tame affair to the recipient compared with the rooster's shrill salute. "Remember, Tony," Juliet had said, a month before Christmas, "you are not to give me any expensive personal gift this year. I care for nothing half so much as for making the home complete. If--if--you cared to give me something toward the bathroom fund----" "All right," said Anthony promptly, for he had learned by this time to know his wife well. The bathroom fund was dear to her heart. The small room at the front of the house upstairs, which had been left unfurnished, had been temporarily fitted up as a bathroom by sundry ingenious devices in the way of a tin bath and a hot and cold water connection, but a full equipment of the best sort was to be put in as soon as practicable, and there was a growing fund therefor. On Christmas morning, nevertheless, in addition to a generous addition to the fund, Juliet found beside her plate an exceedingly "personal gift" in the shape of a little pearl-and-turquoise brooch of rare design, bearing the stamp of a superior maker. "Must I scold you?" she asked, smiling up at him as he stood beside her, watching her face flush with pleasure. "Kiss me, instead," he answered promptly. "And don't expect me to give up making you now and then a real present, even though it has to be a small one. It's too much fun." Beside his own plate he found her gift, a set of histories he had long wanted. It was a beautiful edition, and he would have looked reproachfully at the giver if she had not forestalled him by running around the table to say softly in his ear, both arms about his neck: "Just at Christmas time, dearest, let me have my way."