close to the fir. With a movement not unobserved by her he held out
his hand and clasped three green fingers of a low bough which the fir
seemed to stretch out to him recognizingly. (She had always realized
the existence of some intimate bond between him and the forest.) His
face now filled with meanings she did not share; the spell of the
secret work had followed him out of the house down to the trees;
incommunicable silence shut him in. A moment later his fingers parted
with the green fingers of the fir and he moved away from her side,
starting around the tree and studying it as though in delight of fresh
knowledge. So she watched him pass around to the other side.

When he came back where he had started, she was not there. He looked
around searchingly; her figure was nowhere in sight.

He stood--waiting.

The valley had memories, what memories! The years came close together
here; they clustered as thickly as the trees themselves. Vacant spots
among them marked where the Christmas Trees of former years had been
cut down. Some of the Trees had been for the two children they had
lost. This wandering trail led hither and thither back to the first
Tree for the first child: he had stooped down and cut that close to
the ground with his mere penknife. When it had been lighted, it had
held only two or three candles; and the candle on the top of it had
flared level into the infant's hand-shaded eyes.

He knew that she was making through the evergreens a Pilgrimage of the
Years, walking there softly and alone with the feet of life's Pities
and a mother's Constancies.