said Grace.
"Perhaps I can help you with your plans," said their father. "I think it would be well to make out a list of those to whom you wish to give, and then decide what amount to devote to each, and what sort of thing would be likely to prove acceptable, yet not cost more than you have set apart for its purchase."
"Oh what a nice plan, papa!" exclaimed Lulu. "We'll each make a list, sha'n't we?"
"Yes; if you choose. Max, my son, you may get out paper and pencils for us, and we will set to work at once; no time like the present, is a good motto in most cases."
Max hastened to obey and the lists were made out amid a good deal of pleasant chat, now grave, now gay.
"We don't have to put down all the names, papa, do we?" Grace asked with an arch look and smile up into his face.
"No; we will except present company," he replied, stroking her hair caressingly, and returning her smile with one full of tender fatherly affection.
The names were all written down first, then came the task of deciding upon the gifts.
"We will take your lists in turn, beginning with Max's and ending with
Gracie's," the captain said.
That part of the work required no little consultation between the three children; papa's advice was asked in every instance, and almost always decided the question; but, glancing over the lists when completed, "I think, my dears, you have laid out too much work for yourselves," he said.
"But I thought you always liked us to be industrious, papa," said Lulu.
"Yes, daughter, but not overworked; I can not have that; nor can I allow you to neglect your studies, omit needed exercise, or go without sufficient sleep to keep you in health."
"Papa, you always make taking good care of us the first thing," she said gratefully, nestling closer to him.
"Don't you know that's what fathers are for?" he said, smiling down on her. "My children were given me to be taken care of, provided for, loved and trained up aright. A precious charge!" he added, looking from one to another with glistening eyes.
"Yes, sir, I know," she said, laying her head on his shoulder and slipping a hand into his, "and oh but I'm glad and thankful that God gave me to you instead of to somebody else!"
"And Gracie and I are just as glad to belong to papa as you are," said Max, Grace adding, "Yes, indeed!" as she held up her face for a kiss, which her father gave very heartily.
"But, papa, what are we to do about the presents if we mustn't take time to make them?" asked Lulu.
"Make fewer and buy more."
"But maybe the money won't hold out."
"You will have to make it hold out by choosing less expensive articles, or giving fewer gifts."
"We'll have to try hard to earn the quarter for good behavior every day,
Lu," said Max.
"Yes, I mean to; but that won't help with Christmas gifts; it's only for benevolence, you know."
"But what you give to the poor, simply because they are poor and needy, may be considered benevolence, I think," said their father.
"Oh may it?" she exclaimed. "I'm glad of that! Papa, I—haven't liked Dick very much since he chopped up the cradle I'd carved for Gracie's dolls, but I believe I want to give him a Christmas present; it will help me to forgive him and like him better. But I don't know what would please him best."
"Something to make a noise with," suggested Max; "a drum or trumpet for instance."
"He'd make too much racket," she objected.
"How would a hatchet do?" asked Max, with waggish look and smile.
"Not at all; he isn't fit to be trusted with one," returned Lulu, promptly. "Papa, what do you think would be a suitable present for him?"
"A book with bright pictures and short stories told very simply in words of one or two syllables. Dick is going to school and learning to read, and I think such a gift would be both enjoyable and useful to him."
"Yes; that'll be just the right thing!" exclaimed Lulu. "Papa, you always do know best about everything."
"I hope you'll stick to that idea, Lu," laughed Max. "You seem to have only just found it out; but Grace and I have known it this long while; haven't we, Gracie?"
"Yes, indeed!" returned the little sister.
"And so have I," said Lulu, hanging her head and blushing, "only sometimes I've forgotten it for a while. But I hope I won't any more, dear papa," she added softly, with a penitent, beseeching look up into his face.
"I hope not, my darling," he responded in tender tones, caressing her hair and cheek with his hand, "and the past shall not be laid up against you."
"Papa, will you take us to the city, as you did last year, and let us choose, ourselves, the things we are going to give?" asked Max.
"I intend to do so," his father said. "Judging from the length of your lists, I think we will have to take several trips to accomplish it all. So we will make a beginning before long, when the weather has become settled; perhaps the first pleasant day of next week, if you have all been good and industrious about your lessons."
"Have we earned our quarters to-day, papa?" asked Grace.
"I think you are in a fair way to do so," he answered smiling, "but you still have a chance to lose them between this and your bedtime."
"It's just before we get into bed you'll give them to us, papa?" Lulu said inquiringly.
"I shall tell you at that time whether you have earned them, but I may sometimes only set the amount down to your credit and pay you the money in a lump at the end of the week."
"Yes, sir; we'll like that way just as well," they returned in chorus.
Violet had come in and taken possession of an easy chair on the farther side of the glowing grate.
Looking smilingly at the little group opposite, "I have a thought," she said lightly; "who can guess it?"
"It's something nice about papa; how handsome he is, and how good and kind," ventured Lulu.
"A very close guess, Lu," laughed Violet; "for my thought was that the Woodburn children have as good and kind a father as could be found in all the length and breadth of the land."
"We know it, Mamma Vi; we all think so," cried the children.
But the captain shook his head, saying, "Ah, my dear, flattery is not good for me. If you continue to dose me with it, who knows but I shall become as conceited and vain as a peacock?"
"Not a bit of danger of that!" she returned gaily. "But I do not consider the truth flattery."
"Suppose we change the subject," he said with a good-humored smile. "We have been making out lists of Christmas gifts and would like to have your opinion and advice in regard to some of them."
"You shall have them for what they are worth," she returned, taking the slips of paper Max handed her, and glancing over them.
CHAPTER IV.
The parlor at Ion, full of light and warmth, looked very pleasant and inviting this evening. The whole family—not so large now as it had been before Capt. Raymond took his wife and children to a home of their own—were gathered there;—Mr. Dinsmore and his wife—generally called Grandma Rose by the children—Grandma Elsie, her son Edward and his wife, Zoe, and the two younger children;—Rosie and Walter.
The ladies and Rosie were all knitting or crocheting. Mr. Dinsmore and
Edward were playing chess, and Walter was deep in