FOR

THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.




THE OVERTURE.


Christmas! What worldly care could ever lessen the joy of that eventful
day? At your first waking in the morning, when you lie gazing in drowsy
listlessness at the brass ornament on your bed-tester, when the ring of
the milkman is like a dream, and the cries of the bread-man and
newspaper-boy sound far off in the distance, it peals at you in the
laughter and gay greetings of the servants in the yard. Your senses are
aroused by a promiscuous discharging of pistols, and you are filled with
a vague thought that the whole city has been formed into a line of
skirmishers. You are startled by a noise on the front pavement, which
sounds like an energetic drummer beating the long roll on a barrel-head;
and you have an indistinct idea that some improvident urchin (up since
the dawn) has just expended his last fire-cracker.

At length there is a stir in the room near you. You hear the patter of
little feet on the stairs, and the sound of childish voices in the
drawing-room. What transports of admiration, what peals of joyous
clamor, fall on your sleepy ears! The patter on the stairs sounds louder
and louder, the ringing voices come nearer and nearer; you hear the
little hands on your door-knob, and you hurry on your dressing-gown; for