purposes."

After a moment of silence he asked: "How large a Tree must it be this
year?"

"It will have to be large," she replied; and she began to count those
for whom the Tree this year was meant.

First she called the names of the two children they had lost. Gifts
for these were every year hung on the boughs. She mentioned their
names now, and then she continued counting:

"Harold and Elizabeth are four. You and I make six. After the family
come Herbert and Elsie, your best friend the doctor's children. Then
the servants--long strong bottom branches for the servants! Allow for
the other children who are to make up the Christmas party: ten
children have been invited, ten children have accepted, ten children
will arrive. The ten will bring with them some unimportant parents;
you can judge."

"That will do for size," he said, laughing. "Now the kind:
spruce--larch--hemlock--pine--which shall it be?"

"It shall be none of them!" she answered, after a little waiting. "It
shall be the Christmas Tree of the uttermost North where the reindeer
are harnessed and the Great White Sleigh starts--fir. The old
Christmas stories like fir best. Old faiths seem to lodge in it
longest. And deepest mystery darkens the heart of it," she added.

"Fir it shall be!" he said. "Choose the tree."