Nearly a year has passed, my dear young friends, since first Aunt Kitty met you with a "Merry Christmas or Happy New-Year." The snow, which then spread a veil over all things, has long since melted away. The spring flowers which succeeded it have withered. The summer and autumn fruits have been gathered. Again winter has stripped even the leaves from the trees, and we awake each morning expecting to find that again he has clothed them in robes of spotless white. And now that the season for holidays and merriment has returned,—now that your friends greet you not only with smiling faces and pleasant words, but with presents, as marks of their affection and approbation, Aunt Kitty, too, comes with her token of remembrance.

Before she presents it, will you permit her to ask how you have received those which she has already sent you. Have you learned from "Blind Alice" and her young friend Harriet, that to do right is the only way to be happy, and from "Jessie Graham," that it is true wisdom to speak the simple truth always, and from "Florence Arnott," that selfishness is a great evil, and will, if you indulge it, bring great sufferings on yourselves and others? If you have learned these lessons and practise them, then am I sure that your Christmas will be merry and your New-Year happy,—that the good-humored tones and ringing laughter of your young companions will never be changed into wrangling and fretful cries, or the smiles of your older friends into grave and disapproving looks. That I think of you, this little book will prove, and though I may not see you, I shall probably hear of your improvement and enjoyment, and my holidays will be the pleasanter for them.

These holidays I shall pass in the country at the house of my friend Mrs. Wilmot, to whom I have already made a very long visit. There are residing here six young girls, the eldest little over twelve, and the youngest under ten years of age. Already they have learned to regard a walk with Aunt Kitty, as a reward for a well-recited lesson, and to cluster around her by the evening fire, with wishful eyes and earnest voices asking for one story more. At any hint of my going home, their remonstrances and entreaties are so vehement, that, I think, when it becomes absolutely necessary to leave them, I shall have to steal away.

I am about to introduce these little girls to you by name, to tell you how their time is generally employed, how their holidays are passed, and thus to make you quite well acquainted with them.