soon secured and installed in the kitchen; then Mrs. Murray went in
and out the stores. No one in all the busy throng was more
enthusiastic than she, as with joyful eagerness she selected some
little gift for each, adding to her purchases a little stock of
evergreens and flowers to brighten up with on the morrow, for this
coming Christmas was to be no common one. Aunt Deborah engaged in the
business of tying and festooning evergreens with all the gusto of a
girl; the two made the parlour into a bower of beauty. When the short
winter day drew to its close, the whole was pronounced complete, and
Mrs. Murray went to her room to dress. She was strongly tempted to
put on the same old gray dress she had worn all winter, and brush her
hair straight back as usual; but self and ease should not be
consulted, so she shook out her still handsome locks and arranged
them in the style her husband used to admire, in loose waves about
her forehead; then she donned a neatly fitting black dress, with lace
cuffs and collar, fastened with a bright ribbon. When she went down
to the parlour, Aunt Deborah looked over and then under her
spectacles.

"Child," she said, as she surveyed her, "it does matter how you
look."

Father, son, and daughters, all came in together to-night.

"Girls," said Ralph, advancing first into the dining-room and getting
a peep into the back parlour, "is this our house? Everything is
trimmed up, and there sits a lady by the fire."

Wreaths festooned the archway between the parlours, there were vases
of flowers, and hanging-baskets of trailing vines, and a canary in a