Before the earliest Ruggles could wake and toot his five-cent tin horn,Mrs. Ruggles was up and stirring about the house, for it was a gala dayin the family. Gala day! I should think so! Were not her nine "childern"invited to a dinner-party at the great house, and weren't they going tosit down free and equal with the mightiest in the land? She had beenpreparing for this grand occasion ever since the receipt of Carol Bird'sinvitation, which, by the way, had been speedily enshrined in an oldphotograph frame and hung under the looking-glass in the most prominentplace in the kitchen, where it stared the occasional visitor directly inthe eye, and made him livid with envy:--
BIRDS' NEST, December 17, 188-.
DEAR MRS. RUGGLES,--I am going to have a dinner-party on Christmas Day, and would like to have all your children come. I want them every one, please, from Sarah Maud to Baby Larry. Mamma says dinner will be at half past five, and the Christmas tree at seven; so you may expect them home at nine o'clock. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I am