The fact that it had met with approbation appeared to encourage the little tree. The change may have been imaginary, but from the moment it passed into our possession the branches seemed less despondent, the needles more erect.
"Will you put toys on it?" the youthful porter asked suddenly.
"Yes; it is for a sick boy—a boy who has fever. Have you ever had an arbre de Noël?"
"Jamais," was his conclusive reply: the tone thereof suggesting that that was a felicity quite beyond the range of possibility.
The tree secured, there began the comparatively difficult work of finding the customary ornaments of glass and glitter to deck it. A fruitless search had left us almost in despair, when, late on Monday afternoon, we joyed to discover miniature candles of red, yellow, and blue on the open-air stall in front of a toy-store. A rummage in the interior of the shop procured candle clips, and a variety of glittering bagatelles. Laden with treasure, we hurried back to the hotel, and began the work of decoration in preparation for the morning.
During its short stay in our room at the hotel, the erstwhile despised little tree met with an adulation that must have warmed the heart within its rough stem. When nothing more than three coloured glass globes, a gilded walnut, and a gorgeous humming-bird with wings and tail of spun glass had been suspended by narrow ribbon from its branches, Rosine, the pretty Swiss chambermaid, chancing to enter the room with letters, was struck with admiration and pronounced it "très belle!"
And Karl bringing in a fresh panier of logs when the adorning was complete, and silly little delightful baubles sparkled and twinkled from every spray, putting down his burden, threw up his hands in amazement and declared the arbre de Noël "magnifique!"
This alien Christmas-tree had an element all its own. When we were searching for knick-knacks the shops were full of tiny Holy Babes lying cradled in waxen innocence in mangers of yellow corn. One of these little effigies we had bought because they pleased us. And when, the decoration of the tree being nearly finished, the tip of the centre stem standing scraggily naked called for covering, what more fitting than that the dear little Sacred Bébé in his nest of golden straw should have the place of honour?
It was late on Christmas Eve before our task was ended. But next morning when Karl, carrying in our petit déjeûner, turned on the electric light, and our anxious gaze sought our work, we found it good.
Then followed a hurried packing of the loose presents; and, a fiacre having been summoned, the tree which had entered the room in all humility passed out transmogrified beyond knowledge. Rosine, duster in hand, leant over the banisters of the upper landing to watch its descent. Karl saw it coming and flew to open the outer door for its better egress. Even the stout old driver of the red-wheeled cab creaked cumbrously round on his box to look upon its beauties.