Yes, the birds seemed to have felt a curiosity about the little Chinaman when he went out into the garden with the children after Sunday luncheon; for sometimes, on that day, he used to put on garments so splendid that he did not like to show himself above stairs or on the street, and the birds came out of the trees to take a peep at him.  One of these garments was a frock of silk covered with golden dragons, lotus-flowers, and gilded fringes; and with it he wore a golden butterfly with jeweled wings on his rimless cap.

Even Mr. Van Buren had wondered where a servant obtained such a glittering robe!  One day he described the wardrobe of his house-boy to the consul.  “Is everything all right?” he asked.

The consul laughed.  “You don’t know China!” he said.  “Probably the old Manchurian mandarin had a fancy for decking out the boy!”

Nora’s eyes used to double in size when she saw him in silk and gold and silver, with the jeweled butterfly waving above his narrow black eyes.  “There’s not the loikes on this planet,” she would say.  “I would think he’d stepped off a star and landed here!  Queen Victory never looked the aqual of that little hathen varmit!”

It was agreed that Sky-High should be made the Santa Claus of the Christmas party.  He promised to appear in his dragon robe, though he said it was never worn in public excepting on vice-royal occasions.

“Sky-High, did you ever see a vice-royal occasion?” asked Lucy, wondering what the double word meant.

“Yea, my little Lady of the Lotus,” answered the house-boy.  “And once I was present on a royal occasion in Pekin.  The Son of Heaven appeared that day in all his splendor.”

“You waited on your mandarin?” asked Lucy.

“I attended upon my mandarin—­yes?” Little Sky-High burst forth into the forbidden “flowery language.”  “It was in the Purple City.  Barbarians cannot understand; but in our court, in the Inner City, in the ancient Purple City, we associate with the Sun and Moon and the Dragon that swallows the Sun.  The Sacred Lotus is our flower, and at the feast the heavens are made to shine on us!”

Lucy’s face shone too, just to hear the words of the mysterious little “Washee-washee-wang,”—­in fact she had been radiant ever since she had first thought of making a Santa Claus of him.  She wondered how he would look to her mother’s friends on Christ Child night, wearing his “celestial” robes.

The children were to have their own tree on Christmas eve, at the church among the evergreens and music, and Sky-High was to accompany them in his black clothes and white ruffles.  The Christmas night tree was always at home, for Mrs. Van Buren and her friends.

Little Lucy was to lead the Christmas night jollities, and only the Santa Claus himself knew what would follow the wave of the long Chinese wand which she carried.

The guests gathered early—­half a dozen ladies—­for it was to be a story-telling evening.