LITMIR.BIZ

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with stars, made of tiny electric lights.

      Bunches and wreaths of holly, tied with red ribbons, gave a touch of colour to the general effect, and in one corner beneath a green arched bower, a chime of bells pealed softly at intervals.

      Altogether, the whole place breathed the very spirit of Christmas, and so perfect were the appointments, that no false note marred the harmony of it all.

      “Now for the presents!” cried Bobby. “Oh, daddy, there’s my ’lectric railroad! Won’t you other people wait till I see how it works?”

      The others all laughed at the eager, apologetic little face, as Bobby found it impossible to curb his impatience to see his new toy.

      It was indeed a fine electric railway, and every one became interested as Mr. Farrington began to take it from its box and put the parts together.

      “This is the way it goes, dad,” said Roger, kneeling on the floor beside his father.

      “No, this way,” said Kenneth, as he adjusted some of the parts.

      Quite content to wait for their gifts, Mrs. Farrington and the girls stood round watching the proceedings with interest, and soon Patty and Elise were down on the floor, too, breathlessly waiting the completion of the structure, and cheering gaily as the first train went successfully round the long track. Other trains followed, switches were set, signals opened or closed, bridges crossed, and all the manœuvres of a real railroad repeated in miniature.

      “I haven’t had so much fun since I was a kid,” said Kenneth, rising from the floor and mopping his heated brow with his handkerchief.

      “Nor I!” declared Mr. Farrington. “I’d rather rig up that toy for that boy of mine than—than to own a real railroad!”

      “I believe you would!” said his wife, laughing. “And now, suppose you see what Santa Claus has for the rest of us.”

      “Father’s all in,” said Roger. “You sit on that heap of snow, dad, and Kenneth and I will unload these groaning branches.”

      Bobby was too absorbed in his cars to think of anything else, so the little girls acted as messengers to distribute the gifts from the tree.

      And this performance was a lengthy one.

      Parcel after parcel, daintily wrapped and tied, was given to Patty, and, of course, the Farringtons had many more.

      But Patty had a great quantity, for knowing where she was to spend her Christmas, all her young friends had sent gifts to her at the Farringtons’, and the accumulation was almost as great as Elise’s.

      “I’m helpless,” said Patty, as she sat with her lap full of gifts, boxes and papers strewn all about her on the floor, and Louise or Hester still bringing her more parcels.

      “Let me help you,” said Kenneth, as he picked up a lot of her belongings.

      As he was only a dinner guest, of course Kenneth had no such array of gifts, though the Farringtons had given him some pretty trifles, and Patty gave him a charming little Tanagra statuette she had brought from Florence.

      “See what Elise gave me,” he remarked, as he showed the bronze paper-knife. “Jolly, isn’t it?”

      “Yes, indeed,” returned Patty, relieved to see that Elise had not given him the ring after all. “It’ll be fine to cut your briefs when you’re a real out-and-out lawyer. What are briefs, anyway?”

      “Little girls shouldn’t use words of which they don’t know the meaning,” said Kenneth, reprovingly.

      “Well, anyway, if they’re brief enough, they won’t need cutting,” returned Patty, saucily, and then returned to the opening of her own presents.

      She had pretty little gifts from Hilda Henderson, Lorraine Hamilton, Clementine Morse, and many of the other girls, some of whom she had not seen since her return to New York.

      “Isn’t it lovely to have so many friends?” said she, looking over her pile of gifts at Kenneth.

      “Do you love them all?” he asked, smiling back at her happy face.

      “Oh, indeed I do. Not exactly because they’ve given me all these pretty things, for I love the girls just as much in the summer time as at Christmas. But because they’re my friends, and so,—I love them.”

      “Boys are your friends, too,” suggested Kenneth.

      “Of course they are!” Patty agreed; “and I love them, too. I guess I love everybody.”

      “Rather a big order,” said Roger, coming up just then. “Loving everybody, you can’t give a very large portion to each one.”

      “No,” said Patty, pretending to look downcast. “Now, isn’t that too bad! Well, never mind, I’ve plenty of gratitude to go round, anyway. And I offer you a big share of that, Roger, for this silver box.”

      “Do you like it? Oh, please like it, Patty.”

      “Of course I do; it’s exquisite workmanship, and I shall use it for,—well, it seems most too prosaic,—but it’s exactly the right shape and size for hairpins!”

      “Then use it for ’em! Why not?” cried Roger, evidently pleased that Patty could find a use for his gift.

      “And see what Ken gave me,” went on Patty, as she held up a small crystal ball. “I’ve long wanted a crystal, and this is a beauty.”

      “What’s it for?” asked Roger, curiously; “it looks like a marble.”

      “Marble, indeed! Why, Roger, it’s a crystal, a Japanese rock crystal.”

      “Isn’t it glass?”

      “No, ignorant one! ’Tis not glass, but a curio of rare and occult value. In it I read the future, the past, and the present.”

      “Yes, it is a present, I know,” said Roger, and in the laugh at this sally the subject was dropped, but Roger secretly vowed to look up the subject of crystals and find out why Patty was so pleased with a marble.

      “Elise is simply snowed under,” said Kenneth, as they heard rapturous exclamations from the other side of the room, where Elise was examining her gifts.

      “Think of it!” cried Patty; “she had everything a girl could possibly want yesterday, and now to-day she has a few bushels more!”

      It was literally true. Getting free, somehow, of her own impedimenta, Patty ran over to see Elise’s things.

      “You look like a fancy bazaar gone to smash,” she declared, as she saw Elise in the midst of her Christmas portion.

      “I feel like an International Exhibition,” returned Elise. “I’ve gifts from all parts of the known world!”

      “And unknown!” said Kenneth, picking up various gimcracks of whose name or use he had no idea.

      “But this is what I like best,” she went on, smiling at Kenneth, as she held up the dainty little card-case he had given her. “I shall use this only when calling on my dearest friends.”

      “Good for you!” he returned. “Glad you like it. And as I know you’ve lots of dearest friends, I’ll promise, when it’s worn out, to give you another.”

      Elise looked a trifle disappointed at this offhand response to her more earnest speech, but she only smiled gaily, and turned the subject.

      CHAPTER V

      SKATING AND DANCING

      “Kenneth thinks an awful lot of you, Patty,” said Elise, as, after the Christmas party was all over, the girls were indulging in a good-night chat.

      “Pooh,” said Patty, who, in kimono and bedroom slippers, nestled in a big easy-chair in front of the wood-fire in Elise’s dressing-room. “I’ve known Ken for years, and we do think a lot of each other. But you needn’t take that tone, Elise. It’s a boy and girl chumminess, and you know it. Why, Ken doesn’t think any more of me than Roger does.”

      “Oh,

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