The day before Christmas
gifts arrived from her parents, and in the parcels were packed a
variety of trifles from the precentor's family: beautiful queenings
from a tree grafted by Effi and Jahnke several years ago, beside brown
pulse-warmers and knee-warmers from Bertha and Hertha. Hulda only
wrote a few lines, because, as she pretended, she had still to knit a
traveling shawl for X. "That is simply not true," said Effi, "I'll
wager, there is no X in existence. What a pity she cannot cease
surrounding herself with admirers who do not exist!"
When the evening came Innstetten himself arranged the presents for his
young wife. The tree was lit, and a small angel hung at the top. On
the tree was discovered a cradle with pretty transparencies and
inscriptions, one of which referred to an event looked forward to in
the Innstetten home the following year. Effi read it and blushed. Then
she started toward Innstetten to thank him, but before she had time to
carry out her design a Yule gift was thrown into the hall with a
shout, in accordance with the old Pomeranian custom. It proved to be a
box filled with a world of things. At the bottom they found the most
important gift of all, a neat little lozenge box, with a number of
Japanese pictures pasted on it, and inside of it a note, running,--
"Three kings once came on a Christmas eve,
The king of the Moors was one, I believe;--
The druggist at the sign of the Moor
Today with spices raps at your door;
Regretting no incense or myrrh to have found,
He throws pistachio and almonds around.
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