“That’s great.  I’d like to come in on that myself.”

“You can, Con, we’ll need you.”

“Christmas always does set the children in one’s thoughts, doesn’t it?  I suppose Betty is particularly keen—­having had her baby for a day or so.”  Truedale’s eyes were tender.  Betty’s baby and its fulfilled mission were sacred to him and Lynda.

“Betty is going to adopt a child, Con.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  She says she cannot stand Christmas without one.  It’s a rebuke to—­to her boy.”

“Poor little Bet!”

“Oh! it makes me so—­so humble when I see her courage.  She says if she has a dozen children of her own it will make no difference; she must have her first child’s representative.  She’s about decided upon the one—­he’s the most awful of them all.  She’s only hesitating to see if anything awfuller will turn up.  She says she’s going to take a baby no one else will have—­she’s going to do the biggest thing she can for her own dead boy.  As if her baby ever could be dead!  Sometimes I think he is more alive than if he had stayed here and got all snarled up in earthly things—­as so many do!”

Conning came close to Lynda and drew her head back against his breast.

“You are—­crying, darling!” he said.

“It’s—­it’s Betty.  Con, what is it about her that sort of brightens the way for us all, yet dims our eyes?”

“She’s very illuminating.  It’s a big thing—­this of adopting a child.  What does Brace think of it?”

“He adores everything Betty does.  He says”—­Lynda smiled up into the face above her—­“he says he wishes Betty had chosen one with hair a little less crimson, but that doubtless he’ll grow to like that tint better than any other.”

“Lyn, have you ever thought of adopting a child?”

“Oh!—­sometimes.  Yes, Con.”

“Well, if you ever feel that you ought—­that you want to—­I will be glad to—­to help you.  I see the risk—­the chance, and I think I would like a handsome one.  But it is Christmas time, and a man and woman, if they have their hearts in the right places, do think of children and trees and all the rest at this season.  Still”—­and with that Truedale pressed his lips to Lynda’s hair—­“I’m selfish, you seem already to fill every chink of my life.”

“Con, that’s a blessed thing to say to a woman—­even though the woman knows you ought not to say it.  And now, I’m going to tell you something else, Con.  It’s foolish and trifling, perhaps, but I’ve set my heart upon it ever since the Saxe Home got me to thinking.”

“Anything in the world, Lyn!  Can I help?”

“I should say you could.  You’ll have to be about the whole of it.  Starting this Christmas, I’m going to have a tree—­right here in this room—­close to Uncle William’s chair!”

“By Jove! and for—­for whom?”

“Why, Con, how unimaginative you are!  For you, for me, for Uncle William, for any one—­any really right person, young or old—­who needs a Christmas tree.  Somehow, I have a rigid belief that some one will always be waiting.  It may not be an empty-handed baby.  Perhaps you and I may have to care for some dear old soul that others have forgotten.  We could do this for Uncle William, couldn’t we, Con?”