At your insistence, we have sedulously fostered the Santa
Claus myth, but it doesn't meet with much credence. "Why didn't
he ever come before?" was Sadie Kate's skeptical question. But
Santa Claus is undoubtedly coming this time. I asked the doctor,
out of politeness, to play the chief role at our Christmas tree;
and being certain ahead of time that he was going to refuse, I
had already engaged Percy as an understudy. But there is no
counting on a Scotchman. Sandy accepted with unprecedented
graciousness, and I had privately to unengage Percy!


Tuesday.


Isn't it funny, the way some inconsequential people have of
pouring out whatever happens to be churning about in their minds
at the moment? They seem to have no residue of small talk, and
are never able to dismiss a crisis in order to discuss the
weather.

This is apropos of a call I received today. A woman had come
to deliver her sister's child--sister in a sanatorium for
tuberculosis; we to keep the child until the mother is cured,
though I fear, from what I hear, that will never be. But,
anyway, all the arrangements had been made, and the woman
had merely to hand in the little girl and retire. But having a
couple of hours between trains, she intimated a desire to look
about, so I showed her the kindergarten rooms and the little crib
that Lily will occupy, and our yellow dining room, with its
frieze of bunnies, in order that she might report as many