“I am going to be merry all day long!” announced Wilfrid over his baked potato. “It is Merry Christmas and I’m going to show you how to be merry.”

“How?” queried Ben and Kitty.

“Why, it’s just—just to be merry!” replied Wilfrid, loftily. “No matter what happens, all day long, we must laugh. If you fall down stairs, Ben, as you did yesterday, instead of howling, just laugh! You’ll see—ow! this potato is awfully hot. I’ve burned my finger like fun.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted Ben and Kitty, as loud as they could.

“What are you laughing at, I should like to know?” cried their brother, looking up rather savagely from the finger he was nursing. “I don’t see the joke! Guess if it was your finger—”

“Merry Christmas!” cried Ben.

“We are laughing ’cause you told us to, Willy!” said Kitty. “Oh, isn’t it funny, brother burned his finger! Why don’t you laugh, too, Willy?”

Wilfrid was silent a moment; then he gave a forced laugh. “Of course!” he said, glancing rather sheepishly in the direction of Papa, who sat quiet behind his newspaper, and appeared to be taking no notice. (“But you never can tell whether he really is or not,” he reflected.) “Of course! I didn’t say I should laugh if you hurt yourselves, children, but it’s all right. You see I laugh, though I really hurt myself very much indeed” (with another glance at Papa)! “Come, now! what shall we play till it’s time to get ready for church? I vote for ‘Old Man I’m on your Castle!’ We can play right on the hearth-rug here, and I’ll be ‘Old Man.’”

“I want to be ‘Old Man!’” protested little Kitty. “You’s always ‘Old Man,’ Willy!”

“’Cause I’m the oldest!” responded her brother, promptly. “Come on, Kitty, and laugh, you know! Don’t look as if I had trodden on your toes just because you want to be ‘Old Man.’ We must laugh all the more when we don’t get the things we want, don’t you see?”

The game went on merrily, and all three were laughing with right good-will, when Wilfred caught his foot in a corner of the rug and fell, striking his head pretty sharply against the table. He was dazed for a moment, but as the children’s laughter rang out, he started to his feet with looks of fury.

“You hateful little things!” he began, crimson with rage.

But at this moment another laugh was heard. Papa put down his newspaper and began, “Ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! ho! this is Merry Christmas, indeed! Why don’t you laugh, Wilfrid, my boy? Ho! ho! this is remarkably funny. Why don’t you laugh? Why, this is the best joke I have heard to-day. Go to your mother, dear, and ask her to put some arnica on your head, but don’t forget to laugh all the way.”

“That is the worst of Papa,” said Wilfrid to himself, as he went slowly up stairs, rubbing his head, and casting baleful glances at the two little laughing children.

“He always makes you do things—when you say you are going to—even if they don’t turn out a bit the way you thought they would.”