Sometimes I tremble when I think how many we are; one of us must go soon.

But, as yet, when I count us over, none lacks.
Father, mother, Algy, Bobby, the Brat, Tou Tou.

Slightly as I have spoken of them to myself, and conscientiously as I have promised myself to derive no pleasure from their society, and even to treat them with distant coolness, if they are, any of them, and Bobby especially--it is he that I most mistrust--more joyfully disposed than I think fitting, yet my heart has been growing ever warmer and warmer at the thought of them, as Christmas-time draws nigh; and now, as I kiss their firm, cold, healthy cheeks--( I declare that Bobby's cheeks are as hard as marbles), I know how I have lied to myself.
Father is not in quite so good a humor as I could have wished, his man having lost his hat-box _en route_, and consequently his nose is rather more aquiline than I think desirable.
"Do not be alarmed!" says Bobby, in a patronizing aside, introducing me, as if I were a stranger, to father's peculiarities; "a little infirmity of temper, but the _heart_ is in the right place." "Bobby," say I, anxiously, in a whisper, "has he--has he brought the _bag_ ?" Bobby shakes his head.
"I _knew_ he would not," cry I, rather crestfallen.

Then, with sudden exasperation: "I wish I had not given it to him; he always _hated_ it.

I wish I had given it to Roger instead." "Never you mind!" cries Bobby, while his round eyes twinkle mischievously; "I dare say he has got one by now, a nice one, all beads and wampums, that the old Begum has made him." I laugh, but I also sigh.