Now in the silence that fell over the room, the wrathful Emperor burst suddenly into a perfect bubble of ferocity. He steamed and he hissed and he bubbled and grumbled, he fumed at the mouth and rattled his helmet and tossed his plume of steam about in an imperial rage, for when had royalty been so persistently ignored as on this Christmas Eve! And presently as the four sat down to the Christmas supper, through the moonlit pines came the sound of the chapel bell ringing in a Christmas morning. THE END VAIL-BALLOU CO., BINGHAMPTON AND NEW YORK * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Varied hyphenation was retained most notably in that Fire-glow or Fire-Glow retains a hyphen in some titles but not in the text. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In the Heart of the Christmas Pines, by Leona Dalrymple