Preen your feathers, and stretch the Birds' nest a little, if you
please, and let Uncle Jack in for the holidays. I am coming with
such a trunk full of treasures that you'll have to borrow the
stockings of Barnum's Giant and Giantess; I am coming to squeeze
a certain little lady-bird until she cries for mercy; I am coming
to see if I can find a boy to take care of a little black pony I
bought lately. It's the strangest thing I ever knew; I've hunted
all over Europe, and can't find a boy to suit me! I'll tell you
why. I've set my heart on finding one with a dimple in his chin,
because this pony particularly likes dimples! ['Hurrah!' cried
Hugh; 'bless my dear dimple; I'll never be ashamed of it again.']
Please drop a note to the clerk of the weather, and have a good,
rousing snow-storm--say on the twenty-second. None of your meek,
gentle, nonsensical, shilly-shallying snow-storms; not the sort
where the flakes float lazily down from the sky as if they didn't
care whether they ever got here or not, and then melt away as
soon as they touch the earth, but a regular business-like
whizzing, whirring, blurring, cutting snow-storm, warranted to
freeze and stay on!

I should like rather a LARGE Christmas tree, if it's convenient--
not one of those 'sprigs,' five or six feet high, that you used
to have three or four years ago, when the birdlings were not
fairly feathered out, but a tree of some size. Set it up in the
garret, if necessary, and then we can cut a hole in the roof if
the tree chances to be too high for the room.

Tell Bridget to begin to fatten a turkey. Tell her by the
twentieth of December that turkey must not be able to stand on
its legs for fat, and then on the next three days she must allow