and women become generous, quite suddenly. It is really a delightful
sensation."

"You are to be envied," he agreed.

"It is the first Christmas number that starts me off," I told him;
"those beautiful pictures--the sweet child looking so pretty in her
furs, giving Bovril with her own dear little hands to the shivering
street arab; the good old red-faced squire shovelling out plum
pudding to the crowd of grateful villagers. It makes me yearn to
borrow a collecting box and go round doing good myself.

"And it is not only me--I should say I," I continued; "I don't want
you to run away with the idea that I am the only good man in the
world. That's what I like about Christmas, it makes everybody good.
The lovely sentiments we go about repeating! the noble deeds we do!
from a little before Christmas up to, say, the end of January! why
noting them down must be a comfort to you."

"Yes," he admitted, "noble deeds are always a great joy to me."

"They are to all of us," I said; "I love to think of all the good
deeds I myself have done. I have often thought of keeping a diary--
jotting them down each day. It would be so nice for one's children."

He agreed there was an idea in this.

"That book of yours," I said, "I suppose, now, it contains all the
good actions that we men and women have been doing during the last
six weeks?" It was a bulky looking volume.