substantial comforts and advantages in my power; and the Christmas
bills are very heavy, and I have a great many calls on my purse; and
you must be reasonable. Don't you see?"

"Well, father--" began the boy; but his father interrupted him. He
knew the unvarying beginning of a long grumble, and dreading the
argument, cut it short.

"I have decided. You must amuse yourself some other way. And just
remember that young Brown's is quite another case. He is an only son."

Whereupon Paterfamilias went off to his study and his sermon; and his
son, like the Princess in Andersen's story of the Swineherd, was left
outside to sing,

"O dearest Augustine,
All's clean gone away!"

Not that he did say that--that was the princess' song--what he said
was,

"_I wish I were an only son!_"

This was rather a vain wish, for round the dining-room fire (where he
soon joined them) were gathered his nine brothers and sisters, who, to
say the truth, were not looking much more lively and cheerful than
he. And yet (of all days in the year on which to be doleful and
dissatisfied!) this was Christmas Eve.

Now I know that the idea of dulness or discomfort at Christmas is a