their great day; but the poetic vision of the housewife and her daughters, for months before, have filled the room with joyful splendor. If one may regard the judgment of Mr. Hummel as valid, it is rarely that the enthusiasm of Christmas week is fully developed in the men who have the honor of being the representatives of the family. "Believe me, Gabriel," said Mr. Hummel, one December evening, as he was watching some children who were passing by with toys, "at this time man loses his importance; he is nothing but a money-chest, in which the key is turning from morning till evening; the best wives become barefaced and foolish, all family confidence vanishes, everybody avoids everybody else, the order of the house is disturbed, one's night's rest is unscrupulously destroyed; when it is meal time, one's wife runs to the market, and when the lamps ought to be extinguished, one's daughter begins a new piece of embroidery. When at last the long bother is over, then one must be delighted at a pair of new slippers which are an inch too short, and for which later on one has to pay a long shoemaker's bill, and to be pleased with a cigar case of beads, which is flat and hard, like a dried flounder. Finally, after one has shot out golden sparks like a rocket, the ladies expect one to show one's good feeling by making them a present. Now, I have trained mine differently." "But I have seen you yourself," rejoined Gabriel, "With a package and bandbox under your arm." "That is true," replied Mr. Hummel, "a bandbox is inevitable. But, Gabriel, I have given up all worry, for that was the most humiliating part of the affair. I go every year to the same milliner now, and say, 'a hood for Madame Hummel;' and the person says, 'You shall be served, Mr. Hummel;' and she places the structure ready made before me. Besides this, I go every year to the same shop and say, 'I want a dress for my daughter Laura, at such and such a price, more or less,' and a dress well worth its value is placed before me. In confidence I must tell you I have a suspicion that the women have seen through my trick, and select the things themselves beforehand, for now they are always very much to their taste, whilst in former years they were often objected to. They have the trouble now of selecting the finery, and in the evening they practice all sorts of dissembling artifices, unfold and examine the goods, pretend to be astonished, and praise my excellent taste. This is my only satisfaction in the whole childish amusement. But it is a poor one, Gabriel." Such was the discordant strain in which the master of the house indulged; but the dwellers in Park Street cared little for it, and like opinions will always be regarded with like indifference. So much sweeter is it to care for others than for one's self, and so much happier to give pleasure than to receive it.