Now Ely, still in her fur cap and sack, rushed in excitedly among her struggling brothers and sisters, and rescued the pine tree.
“Sitting up so piminy there, Alice Eliot, your two hands folded, and the beautiful Christmas tree just going to destruction, with those four wretched little thunderbolts pitching into it!”
Ely was purple with wrath.
The four little Eliots were on their feet again in a trice, giggling and nudging each other behind the excited Ely.
“It’s a truly lovely pine,” remarked Alice, composedly, shaking some bran from her skirt.
“You might have said so, if you had gone round looking for them in the freezing cold, as I did, and then couldn’t find one fit to be seen, except—”
“Alice, didn’t I tell her so?” interrupted Mabel, pulling Chrissy’s fat fingers away from Ely’s pocket just as they were about to grasp the protruding heels of a little dancing jack.
Alice now lighted the gas, Ely set the pretty pine tree carefully against the wall, and the four little Eliots danced hand in hand frantically about it.
Then Alice, and Mabel, and Ely went up close to the fender, and whispered together about the presents Ely had brought home to put in the children’s stockings, and Mabel helped Ely empty her great stuffed-out pocket; and the fire laughed through the bars of the grate to see the parcels that came forth.
By and by Mabel and Ely took the pine tree carefully down stairs into a beautiful room, and Alice came close behind them with a great covered basket. The four little Eliots followed noisily, striving to peep under the basket covers; but Ely thrust them all out again into the hall, and locked the door upon them.