“A halo around the head of old Bagley, your tongue-tied driver.  Now, take it from me, Tavia, it was simply the brilliancy of your own—­”

“Oh, here, quit!” called Ned from the front seat.  “If there is one thing I like more than another on a day like this it isn’t spooning.”

“There’s the snow!” announced Dorothy as some very large, lazy flakes tumbled down into the laps of the party in the Fire Bird.

“Won’t amount to much,” Nat predicted.  “Never does when it starts that way.  The larger the flakes the shorter the storm.  Like a kid howling—­the louder he starts the sooner he quits.”

“Well, that’s worth knowing,” said Tavia, laughing.  “I won’t feel so badly next time the baby on my right starts in.”

Meaning Nat, Tavia enjoyed her little joke, but the young man pretended not to understand.

Lightly the Fire Bird flew along the hard road, and soon the tall trees of old Tanglewood Park could be seen against the dull, dark landscape.

“We won’t have time to get half a dozen trees, Doro,” said Ned, “so if you have it in mind to supply all the poor kids between here and Ferndale, as you usually do, you had best cancel the contract.”

“I did hope to get one for little Ben,” confessed Dorothy.  “He is always so delighted when I tell him how things grow away out in the woods.  Poor little chap!  Isn’t it a pity he can never hope to be better?”

“It sure is,” replied Ned, with more sympathy in his voice than in, his words.  “But I really think it will be dark very early this evening.”

“Almost that now,” put in Nat, who had been listening.

“Better for ghosts,” declared Tavia.  “I have always heard that no respectable ghost ever comes out in the bold, broad light of day.”

“Here we are!” announced Ned as he turned into the darkly-arched driveway of Tanglewood Park.

“My, but it’s spooky!” murmured Tavia, trying to crawl under the robes.

“I thought you particularly wanted to see the ghost?” teased Nat.  “There, what’s that?  I am sure I saw something up in the castle.  Come on, let’s get out and try the old knocker.  If some of the antique fellows knew old brass affair was on that door they would come over and get the door.”

“Oh, don’t go up to the house,” faltered Tavia, who really showed signs of fear.

“Not pay our respects to the light of ages—­or whatever you might call it?  And we on the very spot!  For shame, girl!” continued Nat.  “Methinks thou art a coward.”

“Think away, then,” snapped Tavia, “but if you go up to that old ramshackle house I’ll just—­”

“Scream!  Oh, do; it will add greatly to the effect,” and Nat, in his boyish way, continued to joke and tease, until Tavia was obliged to laugh at her own fears.

Presently Dorothy espied a tree—­a pretty young spruce—­that seemed to meet all the requirements of a Christmas tree.