The tree
was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high
above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of
little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright
objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green
leaves; and there were real watches (with movable hands, at least,
and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable
twigs; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads,
wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic
furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched
among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping;
there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in
appearance than many real men--and no wonder, for their heads took
off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles
and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes,
sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there were
trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold
and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there
were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in
enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were
teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles,
conversation-cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially
dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts,
crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me,
delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend,
"There was everything, and more.
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