Peggy stared down the street, resolutely repressing a smile. She had good reason for knowing that Elaine was soon to have another reminder of the arrival of Christmas. She ran up to her room the minute she reached home, to take a look at the miniature Christmas tree, which Dick was to place on Elaine’s door-step as soon as it was dark enough so that he could venture out without being seen. It stood up bravely in a big flower-pot, plainly refusing to be considered insignificant because of its diminutive stature. Festoons of popcorn and tinsel hung on its boughs and gaudy ornaments made bright spots of color among the green. Each of the girls had contributed some little gift. Peggy, knowing Elaine’s sensitive pride, had emphasized the point that the presents were to be the merest trifles. Rhymes accompanied each, showing varied poetical endowments on the part of the givers. Amy, after having devoted several hours to the composition of something appropriate and effective, had finally fallen back on the couplet, "When this you see Remember me." Peggy, as self-appointed committee on arrangements, was very near rejecting this as unworthy the occasion. It was only Amy’s pathetic appeal and her bringing into evidence the sheets of foolscap, scrawled over with her vain attempts to be witty and epigrammatic, which caused Peggy’s resolution to weaken, and led her at last to accept reluctantly a contribution which could hardly be considered original. Altogether it was a brave little tree, as significant of good will as if its tip had brushed the ceiling. It was like a cheery visible voice crying, "Merry Christmas." Peggy felt sure that at the sight of it Elaine would be forced to revise her wish that she could sleep through the twenty-fifth of December without once waking. Peggy’s Christmas day was very much like other Christmas days. Indeed it is difficult to find a new fashion in Christmases, which will be any improvement on the standard variety. There were the usual thrilling moments when the stockings were rifled. As always there were little gifts put into big boxes and larger gifts skilfully concealed, so their presence could not be discovered till the last moment. There were the usual kisses and assurances that everything was exactly what everybody had been hoping for, words that somehow seemed to counteract the frost and chill of the season, and make the December world as balmy as June. Of course Peggy had to make a number of Christmas calls along the Terrace, to see how beautifully everyone had been remembered, equally of course, the other girls all dropped in on Peggy during the day. That the stock of superlatives in the language had not given out long before the twenty-fifth of December drew to its close was proof positive that the supply was inexhaustible.