his gold-banded cap shook its jeweled wings with every step. He wore a
sash of gems which the family had not seen before. He moved before the
company like a figure of sunshine.

Little Lucy had come to his side. "I have the great felicity," she
began--she had got the fine word from Sky-High--"to have a celestial
Santa Claus, a wang from China, to serve you the gifts from the Good
Will tree."

The glittering wang bowed to the four corners of the earth, then to all,
turning round and round in dazzling circles.

No, Mrs. Van Buren's Christmas guests had never seen a Santa Claus like
this one! All eyes were wide with pleased wonder.

"Isn't he perfectly splendid?" whispered Lucy, tripping over to the wife
of the rector.

"He is indeed, dear," said the rector's wife; and added low to her
neighbor, "Is it not their wonderful house-boy?"

No one was certain. And no one, excepting Lucy and the Santa Claus, knew
what were the gifts on the Good Will tree. Lucy and little Sky-High had
bought them in Boston. All those for the guests were blue-and-white
mandarin plates, wrapped in squares of gay silk crape, and tied with a
profusion of soft gold cord. As the packages were alike, the celestial
Santa Claus could present them without mistakes.

But there were some packages in red-and-gold crape still on the tree,
not large ones--not magic plates, certainly.