Everybody laughed except Jean.  She broke her cheese into small bits with her fork, and stared down at it as if cheese were the most interesting thing in the whole wide world.

It was only two weeks since they had had the news of Margaret’s husband—­only a month since he had died.  And Winston had been Captain Hewes’ dear friend; he had been Derry’s.  Would anybody laugh if Derry had been dead only fourteen days?

She tried, however, to swing herself in line with the others.  “Shall you go before Christmas?” she asked the Captain.

“Yes.  And Miss Gray had asked me to dine with her.  You can see what I am missing—­my first American Christmas.”

“We are going to have a little tree,” said Drusilla, “and ask all of you to come and hang presents on it.”

Jean had always had a tree at Christmas time.  From the earliest days of her remembrance, there had been set in the window of the little drawing room, a young pine brought from the Doctor’s country-place far up in Maryland.  On Christmas Eve it had been lighted and the doors thrown open.  Jean could see her mother now, shining on one side of it, and herself coming in, in her nurse’s arms.

There had been a star at the top, and snow powdered on the branches—­and gold and silver balls—­and her presents piled beneath—­always a doll holding out its arms to her.  There had been the first Rosie-Dolly, more beloved than any other; made of painted cloth, with painted yellow curls, and dressed in pink with a white apron.  Rosie was a wreck of a doll now, her features blurred and her head bald with the years—­but Jean still loved her, with something left over of the adoration of her little girl days.  Then there was Maude, named in honor of the lovely lady who had played “Peter Pan,” and the last doll that Jean’s mother had given her.  Maude had an outfit for every character in which Jean had seen her prototype—­there were the rowan berries and shawl of “Babbie,” the cap and jerkin of “Peter Pan,” the feathers and spurs of “Chantecler”—­such a trunkful, and her dearest mother had made them all—.

And Daddy!  How Daddy had played Santa Claus, in red cloth and fur with a wide belt and big boots, every year, even last year when she was nineteen and ready to make her bow to society.  And now he might never play Santa Claus again—­for before Christmas had come he would be on the high seas, perhaps on the other side of the seas—­at the edge of No Man’s Land.  And there would be no Star, no dolls, no gold and silver balls—­for the nation which had given Santa Claus to the world, had robbed the world of peace and of goodwill.  It had robbed the world of Christmas!

She came back to hear the Captain saying, “I want you to sing for me—­Drusilla.”

They rose and went into the other room.

“Tired, dearest?” Derry asked, as he found a chair for her and drew his own close to it.

“No, I am not tired,” she told him, “but I hate to think that Captain Hewes must go.”