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tive house.  Tom and Violet were over half an hour late, but Violet had her new Canton shawl, black embroidery on yellow, to exhibit when she got here. Tom is certainly a model husband.  The shawl set him $110, for which he had to cash some of his gold reserve.

We had presents from the tree first. There was a Chinese pipe for Tom, a red coatflower for Violet, a Chinese pipe cigaret holder for Mears, a necklace for Carey, a fine old belt-bucklet for Lurry, a mounted rubbing of a picture of Yen Tsu-ling for Denny, a dragon incense holder such as priests carry in their hands when reading the scriptures, fitted with a red dragon candle for Dorothy, and a little slab of etched ivory for me.  Peter gave suitable gifts to all concerned also.

Supper was served on benches and stools in the front room and we had a fine meal toned up to super-perfection by the unusual and truly festive gift of two bottles of champagne from the Clove Alley sisterhood.

The evening passed in free conversation until the guests saw fit to go home. Violet, of course, intended to go to mass at midnight, and we had expected to go with her.  By the time all had gone, however, we felt that bed appealed more than a cold and formal ceremonial ina foreign church and tongue, so we stayed at home, and after suitable devotions retired.

Christmas, 1925

Dorothy, strangest to relate, work first this morning, and with some little effort got me to the point of wanting to get out of my comfortable warm bed.  We did crawl out, however, and dressed ourselves in our best kimonas, when we went into the front room to examine the many red-wrapped bundles we had placed at the foot of the tree the night before. Peter at once claimed several stuffed animals for his own, but we soon had to take the tiger from him because his spots came off on Peter's mouth.  Then we set to work on our own presents.  And what were they?  First, Dorothy had three silver rings of my designing, with the Three Friends, pine, plum and bamboo on them, and inscriptions for March, Dorothy, and Together Heart; a new datebook I had made out of an old loose-leaf note book, with a new red leather cover stamped in gol