Don't you recollect those lines of my favourite Herrick ?-- "`Time flies away fast! The while we never remember, How soon our life here Grows old with the year, That dies in December.'" "Yes, I do, you cross old thing!" said the seraph, shaking her golden locks and laughing saucily; "and I remember also that your `favourite Herrick' says something else about one's `gathering rose-buds whilst one may.'" "You naughty girl!" said Miss Pimpernell, trying to look angry and frown at her; but the attempt was such a palpable pretence that we all laughed at her as much as the delinquent.
"And what is your favourite style of poetry, Miss Clyde ?" asked the curate, taking advantage of the introduction of Herrick to change the subject.
And then there followed a chorus of discussion: Miss Spight declared she adored Wordsworth: Mr Mawley tried to show off his superiority, and I attempted to put him down; I believe I was jealous lest Min should agree with him.
"Now, Frank," exclaimed Miss Pimpernell, "I will not have any more sparring between you and Mr Mawley, for I'm sure you've argued enough.
It is `the merry Christmas-time,' you know; and we ought all to be at peace, and gay and happy, too! What do you say, girls ?" "But what shall we do to be merry ?" asked Bessie Dasher.
"Ah! my dear," groaned her mother; "it is not right to be foolishly `merry,' as you call it.

This season of the year is a very sad one, and we ought to be thinking, as my poor dear papa used to say, of what our Saviour did for us and the other world! We have now arrived at the end of another year, and it is very sad, very sad!" "What!" exclaimed Min, "wrong to be merry at Christmas?
The vicar said in his sermon last Sunday, that our hearts ought to expand with joy at this time; and that we should try, not only to be glad and happy in ourselves, but also to make others glad and happy, too.

It appears to me," and her face flushed with excitement as she spoke, "a very erroneous idea of religion that would only associate it with gloom and sadness.

The same Creator endowed us with the faculty to laugh as well as cry; and we must take poor comfort in him if we cannot be glad in his company, to which the Christmas season always brings us nearer and into more intimate connection, as it were." "Bravo, my little champion!" said the vicar, who had again stolen in unperceived by us all.

"That is the spirit of true Christianity.