Within a week of Christmas Bobby suddenly awoke to the fact that he must go shopping. He found that in ready money he possessed just one dollar and sixty-two cents; the rest he banked at interest with his father. With this amount he would have to purchase gifts for the four of his immediate household, Celia and Mr. Kincaid, of course. Besides them he would have liked to get something for Auntie Kate, and possibly Johnnie and Carter. Down town, whither he was allowed to trudge one morning after lessons, he found bright and gay with the holiday spirit. Every shop window had its holly and red ribbon; and most proper glittering window displays appropriate to the season. In front of the grocery stores, stacked up against the edges of the sidewalks, were rows and rows of Christmas trees, their branches tied up primly, awaiting purchasers. The sidewalks were crowded with people, hurrying in and out of the shops, their lips smiling but their eyes preoccupied. Cutters, sleighs, delivery wagons on runners, dashed up and down the street to a continued merry jingling of bells. Slower farmers on sturdy sled runners crept back and forth. A jolly sun peeked down between the tall buildings. The air was crisp as frost-ice. Bobby wandered down one side the street and back the other, enjoying hugely the varied scene, stopping to look with a child's sense of fascination into even the hat-store windows. He made his purchases circumspectly, and not all on the same day. Only after much hunting of five- and ten-cent departments, much investigation of relative merits, did he come to his decision. Then, his mind at rest, he retired to his own room where he did up extraordinarily clumsy packages with white string, and laid them away in the bottom of his bureau drawer. Three days before Christmas the tree was delivered. Martin and Mr. Orde installed it in the parlour. First they brought in a wash-tub, then from its resting place since last year, they hunted out its wooden cover with the hole in the top. Through the hole the butt of the tree was thrust; and there it was solid as a church! It was a very nice tree, and its topmost finger just brushed the ceiling.