Page:The New-Year's Bargain (1884).djvu/219

 here his eyes twinkled with fun,—"that my memory is almost gone; and, unless I write things down, I am always forgetting them." Whereupon he pulled a roll of paper from his pocket, and perching a pair of spectacles with tortoise-shell rims on his nose, very high up, looked from under them at the children in a comical manner. Thekla and Max could not help laughing. In spite of his white hair, it seemed somehow a great joke that December should call himself so very, very old.

"It's a cheerful kind of a story," continued he. "I picked it out on purpose, for I guessed I should find you moping; and I thought something lively would be good for you."

Thus speaking, December pushed the glasses up higher on his forehead, so as to be able to see well from beneath them, and began to read,—

"What a queer name for a story!" said Thekla.

"Yes; and it was a queer Cat too," replied