"I'm sure I can't tell, child. Who is it?"

"Why, Santa Claus himself, with all his presents around him."

"Is, hey?" said cousin Betty; "well, I shall be mighty glad to see him,
I can tell you; for, old as I am, I've never seen him yet."

"I'm so glad you've come, cousin Betty!" said Effie; "we want you to go
with us some day over to the farm-house, and tell us about our
great-grandfather, whose house stood where the farm-house stands now;
and how his house was burnt down by the Indians, and he was carried off.
Agnes wants to hear it so much."

"Does! Well, I will go over there, and tell you the story, some day. But
I can't walk over there while the weather is so cold; I should get the
rheumatiz."

"I'll drag you over on my sled, if that will do, cousin Betty," said
Robert.

The children laughed so heartily at the picture presented to their
imagination of little old cousin Betty riding on Robert's sled, that
Grace actually rolled out of her chair.

"Why wouldn't it do to tell the story here, Effie?" asked Agnes.

"Oh, because it is a great deal more interesting, told on the spot you
know. Cousin Betty has heard it all over and over again from grandmamma,
and she can point out, from one window of the farm-house, all the places
where all those dreadful things happened."