“Yes, dearie,” said Granny, “you may do what you can to make the Christmas bright and happy, but you must not expect any present yourself.”

“Oh, but, Granny,” said little Gretchen, her face brightening, “you forget all about the shining Christmas angels, who came down to earth and sang their wonderful song the night the beautiful Christ-Child was born!  They are so loving and good that they will not forget any little child.  I shall ask my dear stars to-night to tell them of us.  You know,” she added, with a look of relief, “the stars are so very high that they must know the angels quite well, as they come and go with their messages from the loving God.”

Granny sighed, as she half whispered, “Poor child, poor child!” but Gretchen threw her arm around Granny’s neck and gave her a hearty kiss, saying as she did so:  “Oh, Granny, Granny, you don’t talk to the stars often enough, else you wouldn’t be sad at Christmas time.”  Then she danced all around the room, whirling her little skirts about her to show Granny how the wind had made the snow dance that day.  She looked so droll and funny that Granny forgot her cares and worries and laughed with little Gretchen over her new snow-dance.  The days passed on, and the morning before Christmas Eve came.  Gretchen having tidied up the little room—­for Granny had taught her to be a careful little housewife—­was off to the forest, singing a birdlike song, almost as happy and free as the birds themselves.  She was very busy that day, preparing a surprise for Granny.  First, however, she gathered the most beautiful of the fir branches within her reach to take the next morning to the old sick man who lived by the mill.  The day was all too short for the happy little girl.  When Granny came trudging wearily home that night, she found the frame of the doorway covered with green pine branches.

“It’s to welcome you, Granny!  It’s to welcome you!” cried Gretchen; “our old dear home wanted to give you a Christmas welcome.  Don’t you see, the branches of evergreen make it look as if it were smiling all over, and it is trying to say, ‘A happy Christmas’ to you, Granny!”

Granny laughed and kissed the little girl, as they opened the door and went in together.  Here was a new surprise for Granny.  The four posts of the wooden bed, which stood in one corner of the room, had been trimmed by the busy little fingers, with smaller and more flexible branches of the pine-trees.  A small bouquet of red mountain-ash berries stood at each side of the fireplace, and these, together with the trimmed posts of the bed, gave the plain old room quite a festival look.  Gretchen laughed and clapped her hands and danced about until the house seemed full of music to poor, tired Granny, whose heart had been sad as she turned toward their home that night, thinking of the disappointment which must come to loving little Gretchen the next morning.