the street-lamps sparkled with crystals, and the rime on the
doorsteps crackled beneath one's feet, Jeremy accompanied his mother
on a present-leaving expedition. The excitement of that! The
wonderful shapes and sizes of the parcels, the mysterious streets,
the door- handles and the door-bells, the glittering stars, the
maidservants, the sense of the lighted house, as though vou opened a
box full of excitements and then hurriedly shut the lid down again.
Jeremy trembled and shook, not with cold, but with exalting,
completely satisfying happiness.

There followed the Stocking, the Waits, the Carols, the Turkey, the
Christmas Cake, the Tree, the Presents, Snapdragon, Bed. . . There
followed Headache, Ill- temper, Smacking of Mary, Afternoon Walk,
Good Temper again, Complete Weariness, Hamlet sick on the Golden
Cockatoos, Hamlet Beaten, Five minutes with Mother downstairs, Bed.
. . Christmas was over.

From that moment of the passing of Boxing Day it was simply the
counting of the minutes to "Dick Whittington." Six days from Boxing
Day. Say you slept from eight to seven--eleven hours; that left
thirteen hours; six thirteen hours was, so Helen said, seventy-
eight. Seventy-eight hours, and Sunday twice as long as the other
days, and that made thirteen more; ninety-one, said Helen, her nose
in the air.

The week dragged along, very difficult work for everybody, and even
Hamlet felt the excitement and watched his corner with the Jampot's
sewing machine in it with more quivering intensity than ever. The
Day Before The Day arrived, the evening before The Day, the last
supper before The Day, the last bed before The Day. . . Suddenly,