A WASHINGTON CHRISTMAS

[No. This story also is "Invented Example." But it
is founded on facts. It is a pleasure to me, writing
fifty-four years after the commission intrusted to me by
the late Mrs. Fales, to say that that is a real name, and
that her benevolence at a distance is precisely
represented here.

Perhaps the large history of the world would be
differently written but for that kindness of hers.

I was a very young clergyman, and the remittance she
made to me was the first trust of the same kind which had
ever been confided to me.]


CHAPTER I

MAKE READY

"Only think, Matty, papa passed right by me when I was
sitting with my back to the fire and stitching away on
his book-mark without my once seeing him! But he was
so busy talking to mamma that he never saw what I was
doing, and I huddled it under a newspaper before he
came back again. Well, I have got papa's present done,
but I cannot keep out of mamma's way. Matty, dear, if
I will sit in the sun and keep a shawl on, may I not
sit in your room and work? It is not one bit cold