a stick of candy or a cake. I wish you had been there to see how happy
they were, playing with the old toys some richer children had sent them."

"You may give them all mine; I'm so tired of them I never want to see them
again," said Effie, turning from the window to the pretty baby-house full
of everything a child's heart could desire.

"I will, and let you begin again with something you will not tire of, if I
can only find it." And mamma knit her brows trying to discover some grand
surprise for this child who didn't care for Christmas.

Nothing more was said then; and wandering off to the library, Effie found
"A Christmas Carol," and curling herself up in the sofa corner, read it
all before tea. Some of it she did not understand; but she laughed and
cried over many parts of the charming story, and felt better without
knowing why.

All the evening she thought of poor Tiny Tim, Mrs. Cratchit with the
pudding, and the stout old gentleman who danced so gayly that "his legs
twinkled in the air." Presently bedtime arrived.

"Come, now, and toast your feet," said Effie's nurse, "while I do your
pretty hair and tell stories."

"I'll have a fairy tale to-night, a very interesting one," commanded
Effie, as she put on her blue silk wrapper and little fur-lined slippers
to sit before the fire and have her long curls brushed.

So Nursey told her best tales; and when at last the child lay down under
her lace curtains, her head was full of a curious jumble of Christmas