The Presents.

The father came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter. Then scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrespressible affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey glued on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribably alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their page 31 emotions got out of the parlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.