Phemie Frost's Experiences. Ann S. Stephens

the red frock of that boy, Acolyte, who faded into nothing before my eyes, and left me sound asleep as if I had never been to early service in my life.

XIX.

       CHRISTMAS MORNING.

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      WE had a good long sleep after early service, and were all up bright as larks the next morning, wishing each other a merry Christmas, and waiting for that child to come down and see what Santa Claus had brought her. By and by we heard her coming. Mr. Dempster looked at his wife and smiled, as much as to say, "Won't our presents surprise her!" Cousin E. E. went to the door and opened it, looking pleased, and so like her old self that I could have kissed her.

      At last Cecilia came in, sour as vinegar, with her hair half combed, and her sash trailing.

      "Why, this is what I saw last night," says she, crossly.

      "Look at the foot of the tree!" says E. E., eagerly.

      Cecilia looked, and saw the doll and the open trunk. Her lips drooped at the corners, her right shoulder lifted itself.

      "A doll for me! The idea!" says she.

      Cousin E. E. turned away, I think, to hide the tears that swelled to her eyes. Mr. Dempster saw it, and says he:

      "Cecilia, your mother spent a great deal of money for the doll—don't be ungrateful."

      "Just as if I wanted her to do it. Baby things!"

      "Well," says Cousin E. E., trying to brighten up her face, "there is your father's present."

      Cecilia untwisted the string of coral, and looked at it.

      "Coral is for babies! That is worse yet! I just wish there hadn't been any Christmas at all," says she, a-flinging the beads in a lovely pink heap on the floor. "There now—I'll just go up-stairs and stay there!"

      "Wait a minute, my darling," says E. E.; "mother has got something else."

      Cecilia turned back a step, but scorned to let her sullen face brighten, though her eyes grew eager when Cousin E. E. took a little paper box from one of the baskets, and opened it.

      "See here!"

      Cecilia edged up to her mother, saw the emerald ring, and snatched at it.

      "I bought it for Cousin Phœmie," says E. E., a-looking sort of pleadingly at me; "but as you are so disappointed, I'm sure she won't care."

      "Cousin Phœmie! The idea!" Cecilia muttered to herself, as she tried the ring, first on one finger, then on another. "Of course she don't want it—old as the hills!"

      I did not say one word while that creature carried off the first Christmas present I ever had in my life; but it seemed as if I should choke. Isn't it hard that a spoiled child like that should have the power to destroy the happiness of three grown people? But she did it.

      The Christmas dinner was enough to make your mouths water, from this distance—the noblest sort of a turkey, stuffed with oysters, and everything to match—but none of us had much appetite for it. You can judge what my feelings amounted to, when I have lived one whole month in a boarding-house and couldn't get up an appetite—no, not even for the whitest meat of the breast! Old as the hills, indeed!

XX.

       ABOUT LIONS.

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      DEAR SISTERS:—Cousin E. E. had invited a lot of her friends to a stupendous dinner-party on Christmas Day, and she wanted me there for a lion, she said, though what on earth a great roaring lion had to do at a dinner-table I couldn't begin to think. The idea made me fidgety; but I didn't think it consistent with the dignity of our Society to ask questions, or let any one know that I didn't understand everything just as well as folks that have lived in York all their lives. Still I couldn't help trying to circumvent Cousin E. E. into telling me what I wanted to know in a way that some people might call femininely surreptitious.

      "A lion!" says I. "Are such animals invited to a city dinner as a general thing?"

      "Oh! not at all," says she; "the most difficult thing in the world to get hold of is a real, genuine lion; that is, one the whole world knows about, and wants to see."

      "Why," says I, "if folks are so anxious about it, why don't they go up to the Rink and see Mr. Barnum's great monster animal. It don't cost much; besides, there are camels and monkeys, and lots and lots of things, thrown in."

      Cousin Emily Elizabeth laughed till tears come into her eyes.

      "Oh! Cousin Phœmie," says she, "you are so delightfully satirical."

      "Do you think so?" says I, awfully puzzled.

      "Yes," says she, "I do; but to me the eccentricities of genius are always interesting. To be an attractive lion one must say bright things, no matter how hard they cut."

      "I wasn't aware," says I, "that lions were given to much talking."

      "Oh!" says she, "that depends. There is your talkative lion, your learned lion, your silent lion—"

      "That is the sort that I've always seen," says I; "now and then a growl, but nothing beyond that."

      Cousin E. E. began to laugh again, till she had to hold one hand to her side.

      "Oh! cousin, paws, paws," says she; "you just kill me with laughing."

      "Yes," says I, "I don't deny that lions have paws, but it was speech we were talking about, and that I do deny."

      Cousin E. E. just shrieked out laughing, though for the life of me I couldn't tell what it was all about.

      "Now, don't you understand me—honest now—don't you?" says she.

      "Why, of course I do; only nothing could be more ridiculous than the idea of a great, big, magnificent wild beast, with a swinging walk, and a tuft on the end of his tail, being showed off at a dinner-table. I for one shouldn't have a mite of appetite with such a creature prowling round."

      "My dear, dear cousin, I'm speaking of human lions."

      "Human lions! I always thought the creatures were awfully inhuman," says I; "nothing but a jackal can be worse."

      "I mean great people—celebrated for something—bravery, literature, the arts, sciences," says she.

      "Well, what of them?" says I.

      "In society we sometimes call them lions."

      "O—oh!" says I, drawing the word out to give myself time. "So you really thought I didn't understand. Why, of course. Dear me! cousin, how easy it is to cheat you!"

      "Oh!" says she, "one must get up early to match you women of genius, I'm aware of that. What dry humor you have, now, looking so innocent and earnest, too!"

      I smiled benignly upon Cousin E. E.; if she could find any humor in what we'd been a-talking about, it was more than I could. Lions! Where does the joke come in, when human beings are called such names as that? Wild beasts, indeed!

      "How really modest you are!" says Cousin E. E. "Anybody else, who could write as you do, would have known that she was meant when I mentioned lions."

      I dropped my eyes, and folded both hands.

      "It will be the great feature of our party," says she. "Our friends will know that you are a blood relation, and that pleases Dempster; besides,