This document was written in elegant and impressive English. A very big and fierce-looking American eagle hovered over the page, which was also adorned by the arms of the German Empire and of Hamburg. The purport of the document was that George Washington, first President of the United States, did herewith present his compliments to a certain wandering daughter of America, wishing her, on the part of her country, family, and friends,
and “all foreign authorities, corporations, and private individuals were enjoined to promote, by all legal means of hospitality and good-will, the loyal execution of the above-mentioned wishes.” It displayed the names of several highly honorable witnesses, and concluded:—
“Given under my hand and seal at my permanent White House residence, Elysium, 24th December, 1876.
And the seal bore the initials of the mighty man.
The tree yielded gifts many and charming, but the sweetest gift was the kindly thought that prompted the pretty device. Though one had to smile where all were smiling, yet was it not, all in all, quite enough to make one a little “teary roun’ the lashes,” especially when one is very much “grown up,” and so has not the remotest claim upon the happy things that, “by the grace of God,” belong to the children? Such scenes make one feel the world is surely not so black as it is painted.
There was during the festivities, later, a bit of mistletoe over the door, which, in an indirect, roundabout way, through our ancestral England, was also meant as a tribute to America, and which caused much merriment during the holidays in a family unusually blessed with cousins in assorted sizes. When certain flaxen-haired maidens felt that their age and dignity did not permit them to indulge in such sports, and so resisted all allurements to stand an instant under the mistletoe-bough, what did the bold young student cousins? Each seized a twig of green and stood it up suggestively in a cousin’s fair braided locks, when she was at last “under the mistletoe,” and
“I wad na hae thought a lassie Wad sae o’ a kiss complain!”
None but the brave deserve the fair, and then—lest any one should be shocked—they were positively all cousins, and when they were more than five times removed I can solemnly affirm I _think_ it was the hand only that was gallantly lifted to the lips of Cousin Hugo, or Cousin Rudolph, or Cousin Siegfried; and, if I am mistaken after all, Christmas comes but once a year, and youth but once in a lifetime.