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THERE had been the usual Christmas-tree, which the cousins from three homes had gathered to enjoy. There had not been a Christmas since the oldest of them could remember—and he was sixteen—that the cousins had not been together in one of the homes, and had a frolic around the Christmas-tree. It was always hung with bright-colored balls, and strings of popcorn, and all the bright and pretty and useless things which people from year to year have contrived for such trees. It always had clustered about it the various sorts of fruits which refused, because of their weight, to be hung upon the branches—dolls, and kites, and wagons, and swords, and books and baskets. Every year the fruit grew stranger in some respects, with a dreary sameness in others, which was actually beginning to weary the hearts of the cousins.

The first excitement was over. The fathers and mothers and maiden aunts, together with three grandmothers and two grandfathers, had retired to quieter parts of the house, and the young people were left to their enjoyment. It was not very noisy in the room, nor were most of the cousins absorbed in their gifts; in fact their faces were already sobering. Little Nell was still happy over her new building-blocks, and Dell, her other self, was trying to advise her concerning them, while Harold tried his new paints and brushes on the chair he occupied, his guardian sister leaning over the back of the chair, so absorbed the while in her own grave thoughts that she did not even notice the mischief he was doing.

“It is all over once more,” said Holly. He was the sixteen-year-old cousin, and he thrust his hands in his pockets, and said it with a yawn.

“Some of it is a good deal of a bore,” answered Tom, the cousin next in age, echoing the yawn. “I didn’t get the first thing I expected or wanted.”

“Neither did I; but then I don’t know what I wanted, I am sure, unless it was a bicycle, and you can’t put that on a Christmas-tree very well.”

“Why not, as well as the trumpery which is put on?” asked Tom contemptuously. “I tell you the whole thing is getting to be a bore. Even the small fry don’t care for it half so much as they think they do; there’s Nannie sulking this minute because her dollie, which she has deserted, is not so nice according to her notion as Lily’s is. And Ted has turned his back on the whole of it because he didn’t get a drum. This crowd needs something new.”

“I don’t know what it would be; we have had everything imaginable, and if the simple truth were told need presents less than any young folks in the kingdom, I do suppose. My father says there is nothing new to get for pampered young people like us; and I don’t know but he is about right.”

“There’s a whole lot of money spent about it every year, though.” This was from Hortense, the oldest of the girl cousins, and a sort of adviser of the two older boys.

“I know it,” said Holly; “and a good deal of it is wasted. Nannie, for instance, did not need another doll any more than the cat needs two tails, and as for me I have seven jack-knives now.”

At that moment Helen turned away from the paint brush which she had not noticed, and joined in the conversation.

“Isn’t it funny? I have five new balls, and I don’t care for any of them. They keep giving us the same things over and over.”

“They forget,” said Holly; “and there is nothing new for them to get us, anyhow.”

“I know something that would be new.” It was Hortense again, speaking with grave thoughtfulness. The boys turned and looked at her inquiringly. “Don’t you know what Mr. Briggs told about the children out in the Colorado mountains, who never had a Christmas present in their lives, and didn’t know anything about such times as we have? I was thinking what if we could make up a box and put into it all the dollies, and balls, and jack-knives, and things that we don’t want, and some books, and perhaps a little candy, and send it out there, wouldn’t it be nice?”