We, however, never valued her gifts of money so highly as the trouble and
inconveniences she cheerfully encountered to aid or add to the happiness
of others by means of the numerous relations formed in her social life
and the influence gained mainly by her own gracious nature. Many who are
now occupying influential positions owe their first start or have had the
path smoothed for them by her kindness.

As in many Berlin families, the Christmas Man came to us--an old man
disguised by a big beard and provided with a bag filled with nuts and
bonbons and sometimes trifling gifts. He addressed us in a feigned
voice, saying that the Christ Child had sent him, but the dainties he had
were intended only for the good children who could recite some thing for
him. Of course, provision for doing this had been made. Everybody
pressed forward, but the Christmas Man kept order, and only when each had
repeated a little verse did he open the bag and distribute its contents
among us.

Usually the Christmas Man brought a companion, who followed him in the
guise of Knecht Ruprecht with his own bag of presents, and mingled with
his jests threats against naughty children.

The carp served on Christmas eve in every Berlin family, after the
distribution of gifts, and which were never absent from my mother's
table, I have always had on my own in Jena, Leipsic, and Munich, or
wherever the evening of December 24th might find us. On the whole, we
remain faithful to the Christmas customs of my own home, which vary
little from those of the Germans in Riga, where my wife's family belong;
nay, it is so hard for me to relinquish such childish habits, that, when
unable to procure a Christmas tree for the two "Eves" I spent on the
Nile, I decked a young palm and fastened candles on it. My mother's