This was a disappointment; but Bobby bagged Martin by hiding in the storehouse; and Duke was too easy.
After breakfast came the inevitable delay during which Bobby sat and eyed the parlour doors. Mr. Orde slipped in and out of them several times. Martin, too, entered on some mysterious errand regarding the heating. Finally everything was pronounced in readiness. All the family but Bobby went into the parlour. Suddenly both doors were thrown back at once. Bobby stood face to face with the Tree.
It stood, glittering and glorious, set like a jewel in the velvet of the darkened room. Only the illumination of its own many little candles cast radiance on its decorations and the parcels hung from its branches and piled beneath, and dimly on the half-visible circle of the family sitting motionless as though part of a spectacle.
Bobby drew a deep breath and entered. What a changed tree from the one he had hung with cranberries and popcorn the day before! The cranberries and popcorn were still there; but in addition were glittering balls, and strings of silver, and coloured glass bells, and candy birds and angels with spun-glass wings, and clouds of gold and silver tinsel and cornucopias, and candy in bags of pink net, and dozens of lighted candles, and on the very top the great silver Star of Bethlehem.
Most of the gifts were wrapped in paper and tied with green and red ribbon. Two or three, however, were too large for this treatment, and stood exposed to view. Bobby could not help seeing a sled—a real sled—painted red. He declined, however, to see another larger article quite on the other side the tree. By a perversity of will he thrust it entirely out of his head, as though it did not exist, unwilling to spoil the effect of its final realization.
For a full minute Bobby stood in the centre of the stage, his sturdy legs spread apart, his hands clasped tight behind him, his eyes blinking at the splendour. Finally he sighed.
"My, that tree's just—just—scrumptious!" he breathed.
The interest that had held the circle of elders silent and motionless, like a mechanical setting for the tree, broke in a laugh. Mr. Orde arose.
"Well, let's see what we have," said he.
He advanced and picked up a package.