It ended by Fred going out with Monet and one of the attendants into the hills and bringing back a beautiful fir tree.  They set it up in a corner of the dining room and its bruised fragrance filled the entire building...  There followed the problem of its trimming.  At first some one suggested that it was more beautiful untricked with gauds, but to Fred, unlighted by any human touch its loveliness seemed too cold and impersonal and cruelly pagan.  Presently the long afternoons were rilled with a pathetic bustle.  Everyone became interested.  They popped corn and strung it in snow-white garlands and some one from the kitchen sent in a bowl of cranberries which were woven into a blood-red necklace for the central branches.  Harrison brought round a sack of walnuts and some liquid gilt and two brushes.  Men began to quarrel good-naturedly for a chance at the gilding.  A woman attendant, hearing about the tree, rode, herself, into the village and bought candles...  Finally it was finished, and it stood in the early twilight of a dripping Christmas Eve, a fantastic captive from the hills, suffering its severe dignity to be melted in a cheap, but human, splendor...  They had a late dinner by way of marking the event, and the usual turn of keys in the locks at seven o’clock was missing.  At the close of the meal as they were bringing on plum pudding Fred rose from his place to light the candles...  A little tremor ran through the room; Monet started to play...  He played all the heartbreaking melodies—­“Noel” and “Nazareth” and “Adeste Fideles.”  Slowly the tears began to trickle, but they fell silently, welling up from mysterious reaches too deep for shallow murmurings.  Suddenly a thin, quavering voice started a song.

     “God rest you, merry gentlemen!”

The first line rang out in all its tremulous bravery.

“Merry gentlemen!” flashed through Fred’s mind.  “What mockery!”

But a swelling chorus took it up and in the next instant they were men again.  They sang it all—­every word to the last line ... repeating each stanza after the little man who had begun it and who had risen and taken his place beside Monet.

     “Now to the Lord sing praises,
       All you within this place,
     And with true love and brotherhood
       Each other now embrace,
     This holy tide of Christmas
       All other doth deface.”

Only Fred remained silent.  He could not sing, the bravery of it all smote him too deeply.

     “This holy tide of Christmas
       All other doth deface.”

They were singing the last words over again.

Fred Starratt bowed his head.  For the first and only time in his life he felt Christ very near.  But the Presence passed as quickly.  When he looked up the singing had ceased and the candles upon the tree were guttering to a pallid end.  Monet laid down his violin and blew out the dying flames; his face was ashen and as he grasped the branches of the tree his hand shook.  A man in front rose to his feet.  Flockwise the others followed his lead.  Christmas was over!...  Fred Starratt had a sense that it had died still-born.