Despite his impatience, it was not till quarter to seven o’clock that the doors were finally thrown open and Robin was carried down. How charming everything looked, to be sure! Long loops of ground-pine were festooned about the chandelier, and along the picture-rail. A great artificial Christmas bell hung in the doorway, from either side of which dropped gay streamers of baby-ribbon strung with sleigh-bells, that jingled and sang in the merriest fashion at the touch of a passing hand. In the window were holly wreaths, and back of the Madonna over the chimney-piece were two more great branches of holly with the biggest, brightest berries I have ever seen. A red Christmas candle burned upon the piano. The old lounge, covered with a tiger rug lent by Mrs. Burroughs, had been pushed out into the middle of the room, and a series of “orchestra chairs” arranged about it. Between the folding doors the magic sheet was hung, and behind it could be heard the voices of Geof and Ernie in animated discussion. Presently the guests began to arrive,—Georgie and his nurse, Robin’s “chum” John, who had been looked up especially for the occasion, because, as Bobs persuasively explained, “it would be pretty odd for a boy to give a party and not ask his own chum”; old Mrs. Endicott, who is Mrs. Burroughs’ aunt, and Rosebud, very gay and debonair in a becoming red ribbon bow. “The audience is ready,” sang out Robin, from his lair on the tiger skin. “What makes the party so late, I’d like to know?” “It isn’t late at all,” returned Mrs. Burroughs, from behind the curtain. “The idea! we said half-past seven o’clock, and it is only quarter after. You are early! That’s all!” However, in another moment Geof appeared to turn down the lights. With a deep, expectant sigh from Robin, Georgie, and John, the party had begun! The pictures were certainly charming, and Geoffrey managed the slides without a hitch. First came “_The Night before Christmas_”:—Santa Claus starting out on his journey with a sleigh overladen with toys. How life-like the reindeer looked, to be sure! and how impatient to be off! “They can go, I bet you!” shouted Georgie, “once Santa takes up the lines.” Next followed a scene among the roof-tops; a great round moon overhead, and Santa Claus already disappearing down the chimney. “This can be your house, John,” says Robin, magnanimously. “Perhaps he’s going to leave that tin trumpet. I don’t want it.” “Neither do I,” answered John. “I’d rather have a real automobile.” But already the scene had shifted. Santa Claus, upon the hearthrug, was filling stockings with a roguish glance at three little heads buried among the pillows of a great four-poster bed.