It ended by Fred going out with Monet and one of the attendants into the hills and bringing back a beautiful fir tree. They set it up in a corner of the dining room and its bruised fragrance filled the entire building... There followed the problem of its trimming. At first some one suggested that it was more beautiful untricked with gauds, but to Fred, unlighted by any human touch its loveliness seemed too cold and impersonal and cruelly pagan. Presently the long afternoons were rilled with a pathetic bustle. Everyone became interested. They popped corn and strung it in snow-white garlands and some one from the kitchen sent in a bowl of cranberries which were woven into a blood-red necklace for the central branches. Harrison brought round a sack of walnuts and some liquid gilt and two brushes. Men began to quarrel good-naturedly for a chance at the gilding. A woman attendant, hearing about the tree, rode, herself, into the village and bought candles... Finally it was finished, and it stood in the early twilight of a dripping Christmas Eve, a fantastic captive from the hills, suffering its severe dignity to be melted in a cheap, but human, splendor... They had a late dinner by way of marking the event, and the usual turn of keys in the locks at seven o'clock was missing. At the close of the meal as they were bringing on plum pudding Fred rose from his place to light the candles... A little tremor ran through the room; Monet started to play... He played all the heartbreaking melodies--"Noël" and "Nazareth" and "Adeste Fideles." Slowly the tears began to trickle, but they fell silently, welling up from mysterious reaches too deep for shallow murmurings. Suddenly a thin, quavering voice started a song. "God rest you, merry gentlemen!" The first line rang out in all its tremulous bravery. "_Merry_ gentlemen!" flashed through Fred's mind. "What mockery!" But a swelling chorus took it up and in the next instant they were men again. They sang it all--every word to the last line ... repeating each stanza after the little man who had begun it and who had risen and taken his place beside Monet. "Now to the Lord sing praises, All you within this place, And with true love and brotherhood Each other now embrace, This holy tide of Christmas All other doth deface." Only Fred remained silent. He could not sing, the bravery of it all smote him too deeply. "This holy tide of Christmas All other doth deface." They were singing the last words over again.