Everybody stared hard at Maida, seated on her father’s knee, and she dimpled and blushed under the observation. She was dressed all in white—white ribbons, white sash, white socks and shoes, the softest, filmiest white cobweb dress. Her hair streamed loose—a cascade of delicate, clinging ringlets of the palest gold. Her big, gray eyes, soft with the happiness of the long day, reflected the firelight. Her cheeks had grown round as well as pink and dimpled. She did not look sick. “Oh, Dicky,” she cried, “just think, you’re going to be cured. Didn’t I tell you when my father saw you, he’d fix it all right? My father’s a magician!” But Dicky could not answer. He was gulping furiously to keep back the tears of delight. But he smiled his radiant smile. Billy took everybody’s attention away from him by turning an unexpected cartwheel in the middle of the floor. Finally, Maida announced that it was time for the tree. They formed in line and marched into the shop to a tune that Billy thumped out of the silver-toned old spinet. I wish you could have heard the things the children said. ---------------------- The tree went close to the ceiling. Just above it, with arms outstretched, swung a beautiful Christmas angel. Hanging from it were all kinds of glittery, quivery, sparkly things in silver and gold. Festooned about it were strings of pop corn and cranberries. At every branch-tip glistened a long glass icicle. And the whole thing was ablaze with candles and veiled in a mist of gold and silver. At the foot of the tree, groups of tiny figures in painted plaster told the whole Christmas Day story from the moment of the first sight of the star by the shepherds who watched their flocks to the arrival, at the manger, of the Wise Men, bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh. Billy Potter disappeared for a moment and came in, presently, the most chubby and pink-faced and blue-eyed of Santa Clauses, in purple velvet trimmed with ermine, with long white hair and a long white beard. I can’t begin to name to you all the fruits of that magic tree. From Maida, there came to Rosie a big golden cage with a pair of canary birds, to Arthur a chest of wonderful tools, to Dicky a little bookcase full of beautiful books, to Laura a collection of sashes and ribbons, to Harold a long train of cars. For Molly, Betsy and the Clark twins came so many gifts that you could hardly count them all—dolls and dolls’ wardrobes, tiny doll-houses and tinier doll-furniture. For Tim came a sled and bicycle. To Maida came a wonderful set of paper boxes from Dicky, a long necklace of carved beads from Arthur, a beautiful blank-book, with all her candy recipes, beautifully written out, from Rosie, a warm little pair of knitted bed-shoes from Granny, a quaint, little, old-fashioned locket from Dr. Pierce—he said it had once belonged to another little sick girl who died.