“Ernie,” said mother, turning in the doorway with Robin’s tray, which she was about to carry to the nursery, “I don’t wish you to speak that way. It is not right. Uncle George has been a good friend to us, according to his lights, and in this instance the fault is entirely with Hazard. He was foolish and careless, and we cannot expect an exception to be made in his case. It was against my wishes that he took a position,—now it lies with himself to make the best of it, and to try to overcome those faults of character which prevent his being the comfort and support to me that I have a right to expect.” Poor Hazey, who was helping dry the dishes, blushed to the roots of his hair, and dropped a cup and smashed it. Oh, dear! I do feel so sorry for _everybody_! That big splash is a tear;—and to-night there just _don’t_ seem to be any roses, so there! Monday, December 22. All last night the wind whistled and howled about the house. This morning we woke to a snowstorm of almost blizzard proportions. And, oh, but the atmosphere was arctic! “You get up first,” says Ernie, poking her little pink nose above the bed-covers. “Indeed, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” I answered. “It’s _your_ turn.” “I thought you loved me, Elizabeth!” wailed Ernestine, reproachfully. “So I do,” I answered, and hopped heroically forth to the glacial matting. Ernie followed with hysterical giggles,—and I can tell you it did not take us long to dress! Fortunately Miss Brown had gone to spend Sunday with a niece in Flatbush, so we did not have her to worry about. Mother made the nursery as comfortable as possible at the sacrifice of heavy inroads upon our precious stock of coal, and there Haze, Ernie, Robin, and I passed the morning. For Haze was taken ill Sunday night with a sharp attack of laryngitis, and was still unfit for the office; and we did not think it wise for Ernie to attempt to make her way to school through the snowdrifts. But, though it is not often now that we have the chance of a day together, it was not especially jolly. Poor Hazey squatted on the register, very hoarse and gloomy, pegging away at his eternal Cæsar; I darned stockings, and understood just how it was that Rose had used to be cross on a stormy Monday; while Ernie, hid in a corner behind a series of screens that she had contrived, sang carols and asked ridiculous riddles, busy as she declared upon “a secret.” As for Robin, he sat in his shabby little grey flannel dressing-gown, propped up with pillows in the middle of mother’s big bed, talking about Santa Claus and the things he wanted for Christmas.— “I’ve been good for three weeks,” he boasted vaingloriously. “I’ve taken my cod-liver oil,—haven’t I, Elizabeth? And I’ve finished the First Reader, and learned to spell _squirrel_! Hope old Santa knows about it, ’cause I want a lot o’ things!” “Why don’t you write a letter, and tell him what you want?” suggested Ernie.