been servant to the master's father - being thirty-second cousin to one of the servants - being very kind with some person who was very intimate with the shoe-black's assistant - or, in fact, any cause which would get the visitor within the door, at a time when all was gaiety, and no particular attention paid to the bearing of the guests. Then came out the two gallon copper, foaming with brown October. The full horns were handed round with cheerfulness, and 'a merry Christmas and a happy new year' invoked upon the heads of all the inmates, even down to the favourite lap dog. Many was the tale and merry jest which circled round the old kitchen on this joyous night. Early in the morning parties wandered from house to house, in company with some neighbour whose stentorian voice was best calculated to 'break the bands of sleep asunder.' The honest inhabitants of the cottages were agreeably roused from their dreams by spirited songs and the music of fiddlers, who accompanied the strolling groups. These persons were often invited in to the first taste of the Christmas cheer, and as 'daylight began to glent in the sky,' the two minstrels might be seen toddling towards home with their 'skins full.' A peal on the church bells announced that it was Christmas day, and at the joyous sound the boys loaded the kitchen hearth with a huge fire. After the introduction of tea, it being usual to breakfast upon it that morning, though it was never tasted all the rest of the year, in farm houses, the master's first duty was to compliment every cow with a sheaf of corn, and then return to broach the 'Christmas drink.' Breakfast being over generally by day-break, the boys procured a quantity of evergreens, with which the girls decorated the house windows. The clerks of the churches and chapels took care to adorn the candlesticks, pulpit, windows, and in some places even the pews in a similar manner. The morning work done, the young men dressed in their best clothes, and went into the fields with their guns, for Christmas day was a great day or field sports. Even long after the intro-

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