like her. I could have danced up and down the table, but instead I said
grace over and over inside. I had something to say it for. All of us
did.

Besides a present, each of us had a new dress. It was made of
worsted--real worsted, not calico; and that morning after breakfast, and
after everything had been cleaned up, we put on our new dresses and came
down in the parlor.

And such a fire as there was in it!

It sputtered and flamed, and danced and blazed, and crackled and roared.
Oh, it knew it was Christmas, that fire did, and the mistletoe and holly
and running cedar knew it, too!

At first, though, the children felt so stiff and funny in their
new-shaped dresses made like other children's that they weren't natural,
so I pretended we were having a soirée, and I went round and shook hands
with every one.

They got to laughing so at the names I gave them--names that fit some,
and didn't touch others by a thousand years--that the stiffness went.
And if in all Yorkburg there was a cheerfuller room or a happier lot of
children that Christmas Day than we were, we didn't hear of it. I don't
believe there was, either.

The reason we enjoyed this Christmas so was because it was on Christmas
Day.

Our celebrations had always been after Christmas, and Christmas after