“Oh, you dear, good old thing!” said Luce.  “That is just exactly what we wanted.  Here, Lyd!  Peg!  Help me spread this down.”

“Chick,” said the sparrow, “will you please take charge of this?”

And there was a great long vine of shining green ivy which the sparrow had dragged in with him from some place in the woods.  Lucy was so delighted that she fairly clapped her brown leather hands.

“Quick, Francaise!” she cried.  “Take this and twist it around the tree.  Just the thing to hide poor old Norway’s bare places.  Oh, it’s just lovely!”

All this time Mr. Rabbit had been holding his ears very straight up, and now he shook a couple of button-balls and some acorn-cups out of one, and a lot of mountain-ash berries out of the other.

“Do to hang around on the tree.  Look kind of odd and nice,” he said.

“Well, I should think so!” Luce answered.  “I never did see such good creatures as you are; and we all thought you had gone home to bed.”

Speaking of bed made the chicken gape a little, and they all remembered how late it was.  They never stopped chattering and laughing for a minute; but they went to work harder than ever, and soon had all the moss spread down, the ivy twined over the tree, and the button-balls, acorn-cups, and berries hung up where they would show best.

Then Mr. Rabbit got up on the stool and nearly covered himself with moss; Mrs. Squirrel got under the tree and stood up on her hind-feet, with an acorn in her paws; Minx curled herself up in the funniest way on the moss; the sparrow flew up into the tree and began pecking at the mountain-ash berries; Francaise and Lyd and Peg all sat down as well as they could near the squirrel and the rabbit; Jumping Jack mounted the horse and rode around beside the tree, to stand guard; Spot stood up on his hind-legs just in front of the stool, with Scrubby’s letter in his mouth, and the chicken hopped up on Spot’s head.

Then good old Lucy started to go upstairs after Scrubby, but she got no further than the door.  Scrubby had waked up and missed her dear old doll, so she had come down to look for her, and there she stood now, just inside the door, with her bright brown eyes wide open.

A minute before there had been only the scraggy little tree she had taken care of, the battered old toys, the torn dolls and the little pets she had played with and loved so well, the bird and the wild creatures she had fed and chattered to, and a little bit of ivy and green moss.  But just as soon as she looked at them all, there was the most beautiful Christmas-tree that ever was seen.

It was very curious; but it was the light that did it—­the light of her own happy eyes.  It dies out of eyes that are older.

THE MINSTREL’S CAROL.

A CHRISTMAS COLLOQUY.

 MR. and MRS. BURTON. 
 TOMMY, aged seven.
 MAY, aged five.
 LUCY, aged eighteen.