IT was eight o'clock, the morning of the twenty-fourth day of December, which is twice as exciting a day as the twenty-fifth and at least ten times as interesting as the twenty-sixth. Bettie, and as many of the little Tuckers as had been able to find enough clothes for decency, were eating pancakes a great deal faster than Mrs. Tucker could bake them over the Rectory stove. Marjory, her young countenance somewhat puckered because of the tartness of her grapefruit, was sitting sedately opposite her Aunty Jane. Jean had finished her breakfast and was tying mysterious tissue paper parcels with narrow scarlet ribbon; and Mabel, having suddenly remembered that this was the day that the postman brought interesting mail, was hurrying with might and main to get into her sailor blouse in order to capture the letters. Of course she didn't expect to open any of her Christmas mail; but she did like to squeeze the packages. Henrietta was reading a long, delightful letter from her father. Mrs. Slater, too, had Christmas letters. Five blocks away Mr. Black and Mrs. Crane were finishing their breakfast. Their dining-room was at the back of the house, where its three broad windows commanded a fine view of the lake. Just at the top of the bluff and well inside the Black-Crane yard stood a wonderfully handsome fir tree, a truly splendid tree, for in all Lakeville there was no other evergreen to compare with it in size, shape or color. Every now and again, Mr. Black would turn in his chair to gaze earnestly out the window at the tree. For a long time, Mrs. Crane, her nice dark eyes dancing with fun, watched her brother in silence. But when he began to consume the last quarter of his second piece of toast she felt that it was time to speak. "Peter," said she, "you can't do it." "Do what?" asked Mr. Black, with a guilty start. "Cut down that tree. I know, just as well as I know anything, that you're just aching to make that splendid big evergreen into a Christmas-tree for Rosa Marie and those four girls." "_How_ do you know it?" queried Mr. Black, eying his sister with quick suspicion. "Because I had the same thought myself. It _would_ be fine for Christmas--it looks like a Christmas-tree every day of the year. And if you've been a sort of bottled-up Santa Claus all your life you're apt to be pretty foolish when you're finally unbottled. And that tree----" "But," queried Mr. Black, "what would it be the day after?" "That," confessed Mrs. Crane, "is what bothers _me_." "It does seem a shame," said Mr. Black, rising and walking to the window, "to cut down such a perfect specimen as that; and yet, in all my life I never met a tree so evidently designed for the express purpose of serving as a Christmas-tree. It's a real temptation." "I know it," sighed Mrs. Crane. "It's been tempting _me_; but I said: 'Get thee behind me, Santa Claus, and send me to the proper place for Christmas-trees.'" "And did you go to that place?"