you throw the volume aside altogether; so now imagine the ouverture completed, the Corypheus lowering his baton and wiping his forehead, and the curtain withdrawn from our picture. You shall find it not only a tableau vivant, but a tableau parlant.

Christmas was at hand-the blessed season that makes cold hearts warm and old hearts young; when thoughts of the year that is past and trembling anticipation of the new year about to dawn, are alike merged in present happiness: when to those who "sit in darkness" the "light springs up," when the "wise and noble," following the bright star of the East, offer their costly gifts as of old at the Redeemer's feet, and when even the joyous and tender accents of childhood are heard lisping the name of the babe of Bethlehem.

How and when this season of thanksgiving and joy and gladness came to be transferred to the new year, while Christmas often passes neglected by, with some few religious observances, too often alas! rather cold and heartless, or else regarded only as a time of holiday and good cheer for the poor and the servants of the rich, it would be difficult to say. "The tidings of great joy" were proclaimed to all,-"the glory" that "shone around" was sent to illumine the hearts and the dwellings of the great as well as of the humble. And yet the cordial greeting, the friendly embrace, the bright smile of welcome, are now reserved for the new year alone. Sympathies, gifts, letters, visits, all the gems of "love's shining circle " are set in one glittering diadem to adorn the brow

of the idolized new year. Christmas, the life and soul of both new and old year, is too often left unadorned, but by the single radiant star that still leads on the faithful, while the fashion of this world places a soulless image in the shrine which the true light should illuminate.

Such innovations had found no favor at Avonmore, the country-seat of Mr. Melville, and the present scene of our story. Christmas was at hand, and the inmates of the old home were busily engaged in preparations for the festive season.

How the noble hickory wood fires, piled up with artistic skill in the wide hearths, blazed and sparkled! giving out not only their genial warmth, but a light that paled the wintry sunbeams stealing in through the sheltering crimson curtains. How merrily the sound of gay young voices and ringing laughter echoed through the great hall, as the finishing touches were put to the decoration of the Christmas tree! the tree of golden fruit and perennial bloom, around which lay so many bright hopes, so many tender and loving thoughts of home!

But this mysterious tree with its garlands and fruits and flowers, was carefully screened from view until the blissful moment when the tiny wax tapers with which the decorations were plentifully interspersed should blaze forth, and give its glories to the wondering eyes and eager hands of the admiring little throng, who were each to claim a portion of its treasures.

If a tableau vivant had been wanting in the preparation, as it was expected in the progress of the

fête, a prettier one could not have been devised than the group clustered around that Christmas tree. It was properly the charge of little Alice, who with her friends anticipated the chief enjoyment of it; but her efforts would have been unavailing to render it worthy of her friends and her lovely little self, for a lovely child she was, that little Alice! and none could look into her deep blue eyes or on her dimpled cheeks, or her golden ringlets, without thinking of something better than our every-day thoughts suggest.

She stood on tip-toe, with her hands resting on the table from which rose the tree, looking eagerly and alternately into the faces of her brother and sister, which were bent lovingly down toward her, and never were three more beaming and beautiful faces in such close proximity.

"Now Constance! now Vivian!" she cried, "lift me up that I may see those bunches of cherries and currants on the top. I wonder if Ellen and Anna will take them for real fruit!"

Her brother playfully obeyed the command, and seated her on his shoulder.

"Take your last look, little puss," he said, kissing her and setting her gently down, after she had made a satisfactory survey of the mimic fruits, "for this mysterious door must be shut until the moment has arrived for the important revelation. Now trot off, and if you chance to meet Johnson in the hall, tell him to tell Hostler Dick to have Wildair saddled for I promised mamma two dozen partridges as my contribution to her Christmas dinner, and I have

me.

hardly time to redeem my promise unless I shoot them on the ground, which a true sportsman would

scorn."

"Your message will hardly facilitate the object," said Constance, laughing. "Let us see. You tell Alice to tell Johnson to tell "

"Oh truce, truce,!" cried Vivian. "I take the hint, as I told you I would, whenever you remind me of our southern propensities. I'm off! tell"

But Constance held up her small white hand with the forefinger menacingly raised, and he was gone in a moment. Soon he was seen in the distance with a Manton on his shoulder, and a pointer dog at Wildair's heels. It would have required but little imagination to fancy the man, the horse, the dog, and the gun, all part and parcel of each other, so harmoniously were they grouped, so lithe and easy and graceful was the animated part of the picture.

"Thar' he goes!" exclaimed Hostler Dick, suspending the operation of the wisp of straw with which he was polishing down the legs of his horses, and looking with evident pride and exultation after his young master. "Wuth while to ride that a way, hey uncle Tom? wouldn't ha' had such a seat as that, howsomever, if I hadn't ha' larnt him, didn't I? Now that's what I calls-a hawss!"

The last superlative of admiration was doubtless intended for the rider instead of the animal, but since the celebrated climax of a western eulogium on the Father of his Country ending with-"In short, fellowcitizens, General Washington was a horse!"-we need not wonder that Hostler Dick should have found

his beau-ideal of perfection in the stable where his days were chiefly passed.

His soliloquy, or his observation, whichever it might be called, found its way over the gate that divided the stable-yard from the lower part of the large garden which was devoted to culinary plants, and where "Uncle Tom" was engaged with a hoe in uncovering some fine white celery.

A large gray cat, which was as constantly his companion as the cat of the Godolphin Arabian was the inseparable of her equine friend, was lying near him on a tuft of grass. Puss was basking and blinking in the sun, her upturned nose and yellow eyes, their long pupils diminished to a thread, sheltered by her tail curled daintily around them.

As Uncle Tom was a character in his way, wo shall take the liberty of presenting him to our reader. He was an old man, older perhaps in his own reminiscences than in reality, though his white hair, or rather wool, proved his right to the venerable age he claimed. There was an air of neatness and comfort in his thick gray homespun suit and clean shirt collar, in his warm woollen hose and stout shoes, and in the striped gray and white cap of fine worsted which appeared beneath his broad-brimmed hat. The cap, he boasted, "Mistis knit for him with her own white hands." So much for his outward man ; to judge fairly of him, he must speak for himself.

"Yes!" he replied to Hostler Dick's observation, and apparently comprehending the intended application of the epithet of hawss, "he's as fine a lad as you'll meet with any whar' between this and Ken