“ ‘I’m coming back by-and-by,’ said he.
“ ‘How soon?’ cried Patty.
“ ‘About four o’clock,’ said the old man smiling, ‘I’m only going up yonder.’
“And, nodding and smiling as he went, he passed away down the lane.
“ ‘Up yonder.’ This puzzled us. Father Christmas had pointed, but so indefinitely, that he might have been pointing to the sky, or the fields, or the little wood at the end of the Squire’s grounds. I thought the latter, and suggested to Patty that perhaps he had some place underground like Aladdin’s cave, where he got the candles, and all the pretty things for the tree. This idea pleased us both, and we amused ourselves by wondering what Old Father Christmas would choose for us from his stores in that wonderful hole where he dressed his Christmas-trees.
“ ‘I wonder, Patty,’ said I, ‘why there’s no picture of Father Christmas’s dog in the book.’ For at the old man’s heels in the lane there crept a little brown and white spaniel, looking very dirty in the snow.
“ ‘Perhaps it’s a new dog that he’s got to take care of his cave,’ said Patty.
“When we went in-doors we examined the picture afresh by the dim light from the passage window, but there was no dog there.
“My father passed us at this moment, and patted my head. ‘Father,’ said I, ‘I don’t know, but I do think Old Father Christmas is going to bring us a Christmas-tree to-night.’
“ ‘Who’s been telling you that?’ said my father. But he passed on before I could explain that we had seen Father Christmas himself, and had had his word for it that he would return at four o’clock, and that the candles on his tree would be lighted as soon as it was dark.