Major Thatcher and Major Webster had the bad judgment to choose that day upon which to go to bed with colds, so we had a second celebration in their rooms. On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at the old police station to leave a book and a “Merry Christmas” for Jacob Peters. “It’s a Christmas box,” he said, a wistful smile lighting his tired face. He was weary and disillusioned and hungry for an open fireplace, his little girl, and his British “missis.” “There is nothing in the world like an English Christmas,” he said. We talked for a few minutes, then I hurried back to the hotel to dress. In the National City Bank Building, that night, the whole American colony came out to celebrate Christmas. That party was a triumph, taxing all the ingenuity of a clever woman and half a dozen resourceful men. It was a supper dance, and the miracle of providing food for two hundred people with Petrograd’s cupboard stripped almost bare was a real achievement. The presiding genius was Mrs. Mildred Farwell, an American who quietly did any number of nice things not only for the Americans, but for many poor stranded Russians whose lives had unfitted them to meet the topsy-turvy order. All Russia contributed to load the buffet with eatables of the “kind that mother used to make,” and many a Russian cook was a wiser person before the party was over. They brought baking powder from Vladivostok, six thousand versts away, to make American layer cakes. The eggs came from Pskoff, up near the Russian front. The Ambassador’s pantry was robbed of its white flour. And the turkeys came from heaven knows where. In the days before the war the National City Bank Building was the Turkish Embassy, and for a night it took on all its former glory. The huge mirrors reflected a whirling company of women in shimmering frocks and men whose evening clothes had not been out of their creases for many a day. There was a balalika band, and between one-steps and waltzes couples chattered in palm-secluded corners. Not a speech was made that night. Mrs. Farwell was determined that we should play, and play we did. December 25 on the Russian calendar fell on Monday. Sunday morning I crossed the Neva with a friend, and drove to the quiet woods out on the islands. It was a favorite haunt of mine; for here winter, whose mysteries I was discovering for the first time, was at its best. The bough-bent pines and spruces groaned beneath the white weight upon their outstretched arms, and the deserted forests were big, silent, and untroubled. To-day the woods came marching toward me. Along the sidewalk a procession of shabby men and worn-looking women hurried homeward, and over the shoulder of each was a tiny tree. In the forest we found the scars--lovely pines clipped off at the top, baby spruces cut off at the roots, familiar families broken up. “It’s a shame,” said my companion warmly. “It’s vandalism, nothing else.”