Well, Cousin E. E. bought her ring, which had a green stone set in it. I saw her hand a lot of money over the counter to pay for it, which riled my conscience a little; but I said nothing, the money being hers, not mine; still, how much good it might have done some missionary society. Well, out of this store of gorgeousness we went, and got into the carriage again. Cousin E. E. said she had bought so many things that this was about the last place she had to go to, and, as it was getting pretty near dark, I must go home with her and help fill up the Christmas tree. Cecilia would be dreadfully disappointed if it was not splendid, and they all thought so much of my taste. I made no objections; why should I? Christmas Day in a boarding-house isn't full of ravishing promises, so I just snuggled down into the white fur again, and let the fellow with bear-skin claws drive me where he had a mind to. XVI. THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Oh, sisters! there is something touching and splendid in a Christmas tree. Just fancy one of our mountain spruces, towering almost to the ceiling of a room, green as when it was cut from the woods. Think of this tree, hung all over with little wax candles, bunches of pale-green and purple grapes, teinty red apples, golden horns and baskets chuck full of sugar things. Stuffed humming-birds, looking chipper as life. Butterflies, that seem to be flying through the green of the trees, and a whole camp-meeting of dolls sitting around the roots, and then tell me if the Christmas time of a New York child isn't like living among the people of a fairy book. This was the sort of tree set up at Cousin Dempster's, Sunday night before this last Christmas day. Of course, we couldn't think of breaking the Sabbath, but the minute it was sundown, at it we went. Of course, we didn't want the little girl to know what we were a-doing; but the first we knew, in she hopped, as chipper as a humming-bird, and would keep interfering and changing things, in spite of all we could do. At last, her mother got her dander up and told her to march right off to bed, just as a woman born in Vermont ought to order her own child; but the tantalizing thing just hitched up her shoulder, and said, "She wouldn't go, nor touch to the tree was for her own self. The house was her par's, and she'd do just as she'd a mind to in it." With that, Cousin E. E. blazed into a passion, and took her child by the arm, with a jerk that sent her flying into the hall. Then I heard a screeching and a scrambling up the stairs, and it seemed to me a slap or two--I hope I wasn't mistaken about that--then a door slammed, and Cousin E. E. came downstairs like a house o' fire, with both eyes blazing, and one cheek red as flame. Could it be that the slap I heard was from the other side, or had it been a free fight? "That girl will be the death of me," says she, walking about like a lion in its cage. "I never knew a worse child."