We might begin this story of Susy Parlin on a New Year's day, only it is so hard to skip over Christmas. There is such a charm about Christmas! It makes you think at once of a fir tree shining with little candles and sparkling with toys, or of a droll Santa Claus with a pack full of presents, or of a waxen angel called the Christ-child. And it is just as well to date from the twenty-fifth of December, because, as "Christ was born on Christmas day," that is really the "Happy New Year."

For a long while the three little Parlin girls had been thinking and dreaming of presents. Susy's wise head was like a beehive, full of little plans and little fancies, which were flying about like bees, and buzzing in everybody's ears. But it may be as well to give you a short description of the Parlin family.

Susy's eyes were of an "evening blue," the very color of the sky in a summer night; good eyes, for they were as clear as a well which has the "truth" lying at the bottom of it. She was almost as nimble as a squirrel, and could face a northern snow storm like an engineer. Her hair was dark brown, and as smooth and straight as pine-needles; while Prudy's fair hair rippled like a brook running over pebbles. Prudy's face was sunny, and her mouth not much larger than a button-hole.