“What is this?” asked the star.

“It is the Wonder Entry; and it is through this that you must go to find the heart where you belong,” said the Mother Moon.

Then the little star was afraid.

It longed to go through the entry as it had never longed for anything before; and yet it was afraid and clung to the Mother Moon.

But very gently, almost sadly, the Mother Moon drew her hand away.  “Go, my child,” she said.

Then, wondering and trembling, the little star stepped into the Wonder Entry, and the door of the sky house closed behind it.

The next thing the star knew it was hanging in a toy shop with a whole row of other stars blue and red and silver.  It itself was gold.  The shop smelled of evergreen, and was full of Christmas shoppers, men and women and children; but of them all, the star looked at no one but a little boy standing in front of the counter; for as soon as the star saw the child it knew that he was the one to whom it belonged.

The little boy was standing beside a sweet-faced woman in a long black veil and he was not looking at anything in particular.

The star shook and trembled on the string that held it, because it was afraid lest the child would not see it, or lest, if he did, he would not know it as his star.

The lady had a number of toys on the counter before her, and she was saying:  “Now I think we have presents for every one:  There’s the doll for Lou, and the game for Ned, and the music box for May; and then the rocking horse and the sled.”

Suddenly the little boy caught her by the arm.  “Oh, mother,” he said.  He had seen the star.

“Well, what is it, darling?” asked the lady.

“Oh, mother, just see that star up there!  I wish—­oh, I do wish I had it.”

“Oh, my dear, we have so many things for the Christmas-tree,” said the mother.

“Yes, I know, but I do want the star,” said the child.

“Very well,” said the mother, smiling; “then we will take that, too.”

So the star was taken down from the place where it hung and wrapped up in a piece of paper, and all the while it thrilled with joy, for now it belonged to the little boy.

It was not until the afternoon before Christmas, when the tree was being decorated, that the golden star was unwrapped and taken out from the paper.

“Here is something else,” said the sweet-faced lady.  “We must hang this on the tree.  Paul took such a fancy to it that I had to get it for him.  He will never be satisfied unless we hang it on too.”

“Oh, yes,” said some one else who was helping to decorate the tree; “we will hang it here on the very top.”

So the little star hung on the highest branch of the Christmas-tree.

That evening all the candles were lighted on the Christmas-tree, and there were so many that they fairly dazzled the eyes; and the gold and silver balls, the fairies and the glass fruits, shone and twinkled in the light; and high above them all shone the golden star.