"Then it is about the only thing you aren't willing to give away," returned Nan laughing.
"Ask a Virginian that? Dear me, what are you thinking of? No, I suppose I am lacking in a proper admiration for thrift when I say that I would rather that a person were too extravagant than parsimonious."
"I shall never be a rich man, I am afraid," said the doctor with a half sigh.
"Comfort yourself with thinking about the deceitfulness of riches, and keep on being the generous man your father is, and you will be all right. Listen to my grandmotherly advice and remember that I have three younger sisters to deal with."
"Then consider that Nan Corner is ready to be as sisterly as she knows how, for any better big brother than you are to us all, I do not care to see. Here come mother and Aunt Helen."
"You must wait till my joints are so limber that I can make my fingers form a right angle with the back of my hand; that is what I am aiming at now."
Then Mrs. Corner and Miss Helen came in and the doctor went forward to meet them.
THAT Christmas was very near at hand was apparent by more than one outward and visible sign. "Though they don't begin to prepare for it nearly as early as we do," remarked Mary Lee.
"I think it is nicer not to," said Jack, "for there they begin so soon that it fools you into thinking it is very near when it is weeks off, and you get so used to seeing Christmas things that you forget they aren't there all the time."
"The first thing we must do to make us feel that Christmas is coming is to see the _krippen_," said Miss Helen.
"They are representations of the Nativity, generally, though sometimes they represent other religious subjects such as the Flight into Egypt, or the heralding angels appearing to the shepherds. They are often very elaborate, and the best display of them is at the National Museum, where you can see fac-similes not only of German _krippen_ but of Italian and Sicilian ones. The different churches also have them. There is one of the Advent now at the Theatinerkirche. You twins will be delighted with the little figures which are sometimes really wonderful."
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN STOOD IN AWE AND DELIGHT AT THE KRIPPEN.]
They all started out the very next day to view the _krippen_, stopping first at St. Cajetans-Hofkirche on the Theatinerstrasse, where the children stood in awe and delight before the scene of John the Baptist preaching the coming of our Lord. The tiny figures were very perfect, the centurion soldiers and listening multitude were artistically grouped, a little brook of running water made a pleasant murmur as it wound its way along. It was not more than four inches wide, but it added much to the scene. The whole was lighted and stood out in strong contrast to the dim church in which it was enshrined. As Miss Helen dropped some _pfennige_ into the cup ready for contributions a sepulchral voice in some dark corner murmured: "_Gott sei dank._"