"THE LITTLE FELLER'S STOCKIN'" O, it's Christmas Eve, and moonlight, and the Christmas air is chill, And the frosty Christmas holly shines and sparkles on the hill, And the Christmas sleigh-bells jingle and the Christmas laughter rings, As the last stray shoppers hurry, takin' home the Christmas things; And up yonder in the attic there's a little trundle bed Where there's Christmas dreams a-dancin' through a sleepy, curly head;

Kettledrums and laughter pealing.

The cross with hideous laughter Demons mock, By angels planted on the aereal rock.

From the echo of such laughter commonplace was the only refuge.

And the herald glory leaps Along the ridges of the outlying clouds, Climbing the heights of all their towering steeps; And a quiet multitudinous laughter crowds The universal face, as, silently, Up cometh he, the never-closing eye.

This is an exageration, (a ripple of laughter dances over the congregation), having a great meaning, however."

The bronzes tinkled laughter fine; I heard a chuckle argentine Ring from the silver images; Even the ivory netsukes Uttered in every silent pause Dry, bony laughs from tiny jaws; The painted monkeys on the wall Waked up with chatter impudent; Pottery, porcelain, bronze, and all Broke out in ghostly merriment, Faint as rain pattering on dry leaves, Or cricket's chirp on summer eves.

Now, kind spectators, I dare boldly say, You all are welcome to our author's play: Be still awhile, and, ere we go, We'll make your eyes with laughter flow.

Oh, he has counsel at his side, And wisdom for his duty, And laughter gay for hours of play, And tenderness and beauty, And fellowship divinely rare, True friends who never doubt him, Unchanging love, and God above, Who keeps good books about him.

She has an intense love and a wonderful appreciation of the ludicrous, sees whatever is incongruous In life, and makes her laughter genial and joyous.

He will pluck thy childish roses, as Summer from her bush Strips all the loveliness that was; Even to the silence evening has Thy laughter hush.

And so all day above the toiling heads Of men's poor chimneys, full of impish freaks, Tearing and twisting in tight-curlèd shreds The vain unnumbered reeks, The Winter speeds his fairies forth and mocks Poor bitten men with laughter icy cold, Turning the brown of youth to white and old With hoary-woven locks, And grey men young with roses in their cheeks.

He sat him down with solemn book His sadness to beguile; A skull from off its bracket-nook Threw him a lipless smile; But its awful, laughter-mocking look, Was a passing moonbeam's wile.

Nat was now so full of freaks and fun, that our little room rang with laughter night after night.

For that the hire of mercenaries from Hanover, my lords, would have been rejected with general indignation; that the proposal would have produced hisses rather than censures; and that the arguments which have been hitherto used to support it, would, if personal regards did not make them of some importance, produce laughter oftener than replies, cannot surely be doubted.

Here is something very funny, Surely worth the entrance money; At the sight what laughter peals!

A man might blur ten sides of paper in attempting a defence of it against a critic who should be laughter-proof.

For silver, toothose silver tones That with her laughter rise; This wealth, thank God.

Laughter rosecriesmutterings; then came a long silence.

I cannot tell In words the tenderness that glowed across His bosomburned it clean in will and thought; "Shall that sweet face be blown by laughter rude Out of the soul where it has deigned to come, But will not stay what maidens may not hear?" He almost wept for shame, that those two thoughts Should ever look each other in the face, Meeting in his house.

[Illustration: "TOSS."] Hereupon ensued just such a scene of laughter shouts, and confusion as might have been expected.

Let me" She wrenched away from him and stood gasping, Olga Tcherny's last laughter singing in her ears.

And then his voice died away against the stony immobility of the man opposite as laughter sinks to nothing against the horror of a great darkness.

By laughter society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it.

From first to last, every epithet hits the white; every line that does not convulse with laughter stings or lashes.