“I’ve got the worst job of all!” said Dirk, coming into the room, followed by his mother. Dirk wrote so plain and good a hand that his share of the Christmas preparations was to address the packages. In return for which the girls did up his gifts for him. It is doubtful if Dirk appreciated this; it would not have troubled him if he had handed each of his boy friends a present, quite unadorned, with the brief remark: “Here; that’s for you!” “Not anything like through, are you, girls?” asked Mrs. Cortlandt. “Don’t get too tired. If you can’t finish, Natalie may sleep in one of the guest rooms, or with Alys, and you may leave everything as it is when you stop for the day, and resume in the morning at the point you leave off.” “I wish Natalie would sleep with me!” cried Beth. “My presents are done up, Aunt Alida. That pile, there.” Aunt Alida had quick vision for shadows on young faces, quick ears for tones in young voices. She thought that she detected wistfulness in Beth’s face and voice then, and rightly interpreted it as a half wish on Beth’s part that she had as many friends to make merry on Christmas as her cousins had. And Aunt Alida never saw anything that she might improve without at once trying to improve it. She had an inspiration now. “I wonder how it would do for Bethie to have a tree and invite the guests to it?” Mrs. Cortlandt suggested. “Beth! Why, she doesn’t know----” began Alys and stopped herself. “No, I don’t know any one but the girls’ friends, the Tanagers and Bluebirds, and those girls,” said Beth, finishing Alys’s sentence for her. “I don’t mean that sort of a tree, Beth! And you do know one girl whom we don’t know at all--Annunciata Carmaldo, wasn’t she? And Liebchen is rather especially your acquaintance,” said Aunt Alida, smiling down on Beth. “I mean a tree for girls who may not have a Merry Christmas without it. Suppose we have a fine big tree set up in--perhaps the billiard room? And trim it and light it as well as we know how, and let it be Beth’s tree, and let Beth issue the invitations! She can get introductions to poor people through--let me see! I think Anna Mary would help us splendidly; she is exceedingly good and charitable under her glum exterior, and is constantly working for the poor herself. We might let this tree be our only tree this year and for ourselves do something else--a hunt for presents, or something of that sort. What do you all say to giving Beth a Christmas party, a tree for children who need happiness?” “Fine, beautiful mother!” approved Natalie with a warm look in the dark eyes which smiled at Mrs. Cortlandt. “Say, wouldn’t that be great! Fun alive!” cried Dirk. “I think it might be very nice indeed,” said Alys slowly. Beth had risen, dropping all the Christmas materials which filled her lap.