He paused a minute, trying to remember.

"Let me see--when was it I last saw him?--yes, yes--it's all of forty
years. I was just a little shaver then. I wonder if he's changed much,
or grown much older."

As for the children, they could hardly think, much less talk. They sat
there, almost in a daze, blinking and looking at the little candles,
which seemed to wink back at them as if they had been in the jolly
secret all the time.

The youngsters had hardly gotten over their wonder and bewilderment,
when they heard sleighbells, and a loud "Whoa--whoa--you old reindeer,
whoa when I tell you!" Then there was a stamping on the porch and the
old brass knocker was lifted--it fell--"clack, clack"; the door
opened, and in walked the welcome guest.

Have you yourself ever seen Santa Claus, or only pictures of him?
Well, he really looks like his pictures, only more human--like people
you know and love, though of course more magnificent.

In the first place, he wasn't so fat--he was plump in the stomach, but
not so really round all over as in the old pictures of him. But
perhaps that is because when they were taken there weren't so many
children in the world to make things for, and he has grown just a
little thinner since then, being so busy, you know.

However, he had on the same red coat trimmed with white fur, the long
beard falling down over his chest, and the belt, and the rubber boots,
and the red woolen cap on his head. But his face had lost a little