prepared for a night of exquisite humour and
"fun" has not found the proposed feast break
down under the very heavy load of pre-advertised
festivity? Better almost dismiss the whole
until the midnight bells usher in the Christmas
morn itself, with a sort of surprise. We wake up.
The holly, ivy, presents, and the rest, have then a
strangely sweet influence. It is like hearing soft
poetry read. And above all, as the Christmas-day
itself wears calmly on to its close—and it does
so—who has not noticed a tranquil melancholy
mixed with the more pleasurable feelings,
especially when the little festival is finished, and
the friends have just gone, and we stand looking
into the fire, thinking how far off another
Christmas-day is!

It may be held that boxing-day has a jovial
air of its own. It is the true holiday for buying
and selling; for on the day before, the shops
have been closed. We read mirth and enjoyment
and a kind of pleasurable business in every
one's face. There is a briskness in their
progress. The flagways are crowded, there is
good-humoured jostling, and it is pleasant to
see the mechanic's wife and children walking
with him in a line.

As the evening steals on, and the lamps are
lighted early, the briskness increases. It seems
true holiday. The crowds in the streets
thicken apace. Then do the theatrical coming
events cast their shadows before, for we know
at that moment what delightful flutter and
delicious confusion reign in every green-room in
the kingdom. There is confusion among the
fire-kings and fairies, and some swearing,
perhaps. Yet that fuss and buzz is exquisite to
think of. In an hour or so we shall have
reached the dazzling latitudes where Harlequin
Sultana reigns, and the slowly developing paradise
of transformation-scenes. It is no harm
for the wisest, the gravest, the busiest of us to
cultivate and nurture a little feeling of this sort
"for one night only," and on principle, as the
writer hereof does, make a regular boys' holiday
of boxing-day, winding up with the ever-
welcome pantomime at night.

One Christmas, it came about that this
pleasant private arrangement was quite
frustrated by some of the rubs and grubs of life,
which lie in wait for all, and which choose this
happy season for their eruption. Everything
was spoiled. Some friendly hospitality was
offered. A sea's width and many miles of land
between. A change was welcome. On the next
morning, very much betimes—a boxing-day
morning—I set off in the dark, rising by candle-
light. There was the steamer, the sea not high,
but short, stiff, and snappish under a piercing
east wind. Only three or four passengers,
gloomy people like myself. Every one else
was at their country-houses fast asleep, to
be roused gently, two hours hence, for a cheerful
breakfast and a shooting-party at the fat
covers. It was a chopping sea, nasty, sickening.
We all sat apart, and did not care to
commune with each other. For four hours we were
cold and wretched. Then came the land and the
railway. All along the stations and towns were
cheerful reminders. Doorways done with green,
and the station-masters' windows framed in holly.
Even the lamp-room full of merry company.
The platforms were lined with cheerful rustics of
the Jemmy-Jessamy kind. But the carriages,
they were full indeed; nothing but gay young
noblemen and gentlemen, very bustling and
excited, and nothing but gun-cases. That day went
on slowly, and grew dark when we came rolling
into a great, great city, mercantile and
manufacturing, which may be called Ironston.
It was great massive quays and docks built by
giants, great warehouses and manufactories,
great paving, great horses, whose hoofs clinked
solemnly on the paving-stones as they drew
great wains along.

A great manufacturing town, new red-
bricked, abundant in great gaudy showboards,
crowded, is the most depressing of places to the
common stranger; how much more should it be
to the depressed stranger? But of this Christmas,
Ironston had a festive air. There had been
some heavy rain, and the newly lighted lamps
were being reflected in a hundred little pools;
every shop was open, and a fragrance of good
things—as of oranges, mince-meat, of plum-
pudding, not so long passed away—seemed to
exhale. Every one was bustling by eagerly.
Somehow, this air of business-like festivity first
brought with it a kind of envy, then a wistful
eagerness to share. What was this?

A hoarding that had run wild with posters
luxuriantly in grand characters, red, blue, and
yellow, variegated proclamations of all ages
and dimensions, shouldering each other like
people in a crowd. The great strong fellows
coolly placing themselves in front of the small
fry, pasting them out altogether, while they in
their turn were impeded and overlaid by the
small fry who swarmed like crustacea over the
others. Here was a gorgeous bill of fare,
bewildering in variety. It was the menu of the
courses for this night, the new untasted dishes
with the bloom and bouquet on. At that
moment—it was gone six—there were wild
scenes of bustle and confusion, pattering, flying
to and fro "behind the scenes" at every theatre
in Ironston. Who would not wish to assist at
that cheerful inauguration? As I read, an old
thrill and eagerness came stealing on.
I would go; but to which? It was dazzling and
embarrassing. Every one was "new," "grand,"
and "original." Every one had "new" dresses,
scenery, and decorations. Every one had new
music. Every one had the refulgent light and
the "gorgeous transformation-scene." There
was the THEATRE ROYAL deserving place of
honour, which had less of flash and more of
calm dignity and confidence in its own sterling
merits. It had HARLEQUIN LITTLE SNOW-
WREATH, or the PRINCESS BRIGHTEYES, "written
expressly for this theatre." Little Snowwreath
was in Patagonian letters. Straggling close
beside, in contentious rivalry, came the
PRINCESS HELENA'S ROYAL THEATRE, with a more
bantering and jocose invitation, HARLEQUIN
RIGDUMFUNIDOS, with its humours, comic
turns, but all in a lighter and more fooling tone.