A few days before Christmas there was given in New York a dolls' reception in aid of the Sea-side Sanitarium—the charity that takes poor children of the great city to the sea-side for a few days each summer.

This reception was given in a hall on Thirty-third Street, and consisted of a series of tableaux, in which all the characters were represented by the most lovely and exquisitely dressed French dolls. These tableaux were shown in dainty booths tastefully draped and decorated, so that the effect was extremely pretty, and the reception furnished a novel and delightful entertainment to the children who attended it in throngs during the three days that it lasted.

At the "Birthday Party" the name of each doll-guest appeared on a dainty little dinner card laid beside each plate.

Mother Goose and her children were dressed in the costumes with which innumerable picture-books have made every child familiar.

The dolls had their Christmas tree as well as children; and, mounted on a ladder, Santa Claus (a doll's Santa Claus, you know) made believe distribute beautiful Christmas gifts.

[Begun in No. 58 of Harper's Young People, December 7.]