The brook, watering the roots of the evergreens in summer gratefully, but now lying like a band of samite, jewel-crusted, made a loop near the middle point of the lawn, creating a tiny island; and on this island, aloof from its fellows and with space for the growth of its boughs, stood a perfect fir tree: strong-based, thick-set, tapering faultlessly, star-pointed, gathering more youth as it gathered more years--a tame dweller on the lawn but descended from forests blurred with wildness and lapped by low washings of the planet’s primeval ocean. At each Christmas for several years they had been tempted to cut this tree, but had spared it for its conspicuous beauty at the edge of the thicket. “That one,” she now said, pointing down. “This is the last time. Let us have the best of things while we may! Is it not always the perfect that is demanded for sacrifice?” His glance had already gone forward eagerly to the tree, and he started toward it. Descending, they stepped across the brook to the island and went up close to the fir. With a movement not unobserved by her he held out his hand and clasped three green fingers of a low bough which the fir seemed to stretch out to him recognizingly. (She had always realized the existence of some intimate bond between him and the forest.) His face now filled with meanings she did not share; the spell of the secret work had followed him out of the house down to the trees; incommunicable silence shut him in. A moment later his fingers parted with the green fingers of the fir and he moved away from her side, starting around the tree and studying it as though in delight of fresh knowledge. So she watched him pass around to the other side. When he came back where he had started, she was not there. He looked around searchingly; her figure was nowhere in sight. He stood--waiting. The valley had memories, what memories! The years came close together here; they clustered as thickly as the trees themselves. Vacant spots among them marked where the Christmas Trees of former years had been cut down. Some of the Trees had been for the two children they had lost. This wandering trail led hither and thither back to the first Tree for the first child: he had stooped down and cut that close to the ground with his mere penknife. When it had been lighted, it had held only two or three candles; and the candle on the top of it had flared level into the infant’s hand-shaded eyes. He knew that she was making through the evergreens a Pilgrimage of the Years, walking there softly and alone with the feet of life’s Pities and a mother’s Constancies. He waited for her--motionless.