"Ah, well, you little folks look forward, and we old folks look
backward; but it all seems like a dream, either way, to me," said
grandma Read, binding off the thumb of her little red mitten--"like a
dream when it is told."

"Speaking of telling dreams, grandma, I had a funny one last night," said
Prudy, "about a queer old gentleman. Guess who it was."

"Thy grandfather, perhaps. Does thee remember, Alice, how thee used to
sit on his knee and comb his hair with a toothpick?"

"I don't think 'twas me," said Dotty; "for I wasn't born then."

"It was I," replied Prudy. "I remember grandpa now, but I didn't use to.
It wasn't grandpa I dreamed about--it was Santa Claus."

Grandma smiled, and raised her spectacles to the top of her forehead.

"We never talked about fairies in my day," said she. "I never heard of a
Santa Claus when I was young."

"Well, grandma, he came down the chimney in a coach that looked like a
Quaker bonnet on wheels--but he was all a-dazzle with gold buttons; and
what do you think he said?"

"Something very foolish, I presume."

"He said, 'Miss Prudy, I'm going to be married.' Only think! and he such
a very old bachelor."