For the first few days things went well. The three children were on their best behaviour. One day was spent at the Rectory, and Inez joined them there. Ted was out in the garden. He was as busy as ever, and had just completed a beautiful little set of furniture which he had enamelled white. A toyshop in the neighbouring town had promised to buy it from him. He was delighted to think that he could earn a little money.
"I wish—I wish I had clever fingers like you," said Chris. "Mums' birthday will be here very soon. I should like to make something for her."
"I could show you how to cut out a wooden photo frame for her and then you could stick cones and moss on it and varnish it over. Would you like to try? You'll have plenty of time these holidays. Come over in the mornings and I'll show you how to do it."
"That would be ripping!" said Chris.
Then his face fell.
"I shan't be able to be too much away from the others: not till Nurse comes back. Noel is always up to mischief when he's left alone."
"Why, I thought Noel was the good boy of the family!"
"He doesn't mean to be naughty, but he thinks of such strange things to do. Yesterday he got some paint from the attic and painted a lot of the garden hose. He made himself in a filthy mess, and the gardener is furious!"
"Well, get Diana to look after him for an hour to-morrow and come over here. Come about ten o'clock."
So this was settled. When Noel heard of it, he said:
"I don't want Diana to look after me. I'm going to be busy in the garden."
"So am I," said Diana; "we'll garden together. I want to tie up my rose, the branches tumble about in the wind."
"And I'm going to hose my Chris'mas tree. He loves a shower bath."
But the next day was rainy, and Mrs. Tubbs told them they must stay in the house. Chris was allowed to go to the Rectory. Diana and Noel had the nursery to themselves. Diana got out her story and began to write. Noel played with his bricks for some time, then tiring of it stole out of the room. Diana was too engrossed in her story to notice his disappearance.
He went downstairs and wandered into the drawing-room, and from there into his mother's boudoir.
"What can I do?" he muttered to himself. "I must get my hands busy, or Satan will find mischief for me, that's what Nurse always says." He began opening the drawers of his mother's writing bureau. In her anxious haste she had left them unlocked. Then he found himself turning over the contents, though he had an uneasy feeling that he was doing wrong. In the first one which he opened there were letters and old papers, a box of sealing-wax and some old pens and pencils. The next was in a very untidy state. "I'll tidy all Mums' drawers," he said to himself: "that will be very kind and good of me."
So with some trouble, he emptied out the whole contents of three drawers upon the carpet, and when they were in one confused heap, he began to sort things out and put back as he thought they ought to be. It was a long business, and several accidents happened. A bottle of gum emptied itself upon the carpet. The cork was not secure. Some ink out of a small bottle marked "marking ink" also spilt itself amongst the papers. Then Noel was tempted to light a match and seal some of the empty envelopes. He had seen his mother do it, but it was a difficult business. The match burnt his fingers, he dropped it hurriedly, and it immediately set fire to some of the loose papers.
This frightened him: he rushed out of the room to the back lobby where the garden hose was kept. Unfortunately it had been left by the gardener attached to the water pipe there. Triumphantly Noel turned on the tap, seized the end of the hose and ran back to the boudoir, where he turned it full on the heap of rubbish on the carpet. The water did more harm than the fire, for that had fortunately died down, but the room was flooded with water, and Noel began to feel very uncomfortable. He put the hose back, leaving pools of water following in his wake; and then hearing Chris come in, he began to bundle things back into the drawers as fast as he could. Chris discovered him before his task was finished, and his wrath was great.
"You wicked little beast! You've ruined Mums' room! What have you been doing? You deserve a good thrashing, and I've a great mind to give it to you!"
He seized hold of Noel by the neck of his jersey and marched him upstairs. Noel shrieked and kicked.
"You're as bad as Inez!" said Chris. "There isn't much to choose between the two of you!"
Noel was subdued and silent at once.
When Mrs. Tubbs and Cassy and Diana surrounded them, Noel lapsed into injured tears:
"I was tidying Mums' drawers. I'm not a wicked boy," he sobbed.
"You just look at the room, Mrs. Tubbs! There are great black sticky pools on the carpet; and the chairs and sofa and all the ornaments are streaming wet! I don't know what he's been doing, but he ought to be jolly well punished. I don't know what Mums will say when she comes back!"
"I'll write and tell her all about it at once," said Diana in tones of satisfaction.
Chris looked at her.
"That's rather tell-taley!" he remarked.
"I don't care. Mums said I was to write and tell her everything."
Noel began to cry lustily now. And then Chris, still holding him firmly, backed him into a big hanging cupboard outside the nursery door. Locking the door upon him, he said:
"You'll stay there till dinner-time to punish you."
Mrs. Tubbs and Cassy had gone to the boudoir to repair the mischief done there. Noel kicked and screamed till he was tired out.
Chris felt worried. He looked at Diana writing away as if her life depended upon it.
"I'm afraid Mums will say that you ought to have looked after Noel better. I s'pose I oughtn't to have gone away, but you did promise you'd see after him."
"Yes, but I was writing my story, and I forgot him."
"Don't make him out too bad, Diana. Tell Mums he was trying to tidy her drawers for her. He didn't mean to be wicked. I think I'll let him out. He's quiet now."
But when Noel was liberated, he rushed downstairs and out into the road without his cap. The rain had stopped. He was so angry that Chris had dared to lock him up in a cupboard that he hardly knew what he was doing. And then suddenly he met the man who had been doing some gardening for Miss Constance.
"Oh, God's man, they've been so unkind to me!"
Noel stopped and gripping hold of the man's coat held him prisoner whilst he poured out his story to him.
"And there's nobody to be kind to me, not one. Diana is writing to Mums to tell her I'm a wicked boy, and Chris called me a beast, and I hate him!"
"Oh, 'ere, little master! This won't do! No, it won't! Why, I were tellin' my wife of you, 'ow pious you were for such a little 'un. Why, your name for me sticks in my throat at times and keeps me from the 'Golden Dog,' which I do frequent more'n is good for me!"
Noel stopped crying. He began to smile.
"I b'lieve God sent you to meet me to be kind to me, did He?"
"Well, I shouldn't wonder. Cheer up! You be too big a boy to cry! I reckon you just meant to have a tidy-up. Accidents will happen."
"But Mums will hear about me, and she'll think I spoilt her room on purpose."
"Not her. And couldn't you write a letter yourself and say you didn't mean to do it?"
"Why, so I could!" said Noel. "Could you help me to write it?"
"I bain't much on a scholar, but my wife, she be a fine writer! You come on home with me, and we'll get 'er to set her pen to work for 'ee."
Noel slipped his hand inside the big horny one of his friend and trotted home with him quite contentedly. His cottage was up a lane at the end of the village. Mrs. Thorn, his wife, was just dishing a very nice dish of stewed rabbit; the little kitchen, though small and bare, was beautifully clean. In a chair up at the table sat a little white-faced, dark-haired boy about a year younger than Noel. His name was Bertie.
Mrs. Thorn listened with a pleasant smile to Noel's story. She asked him to sit down and have a bit of food with them, and promised to help him write his letter afterwards.
"I've heard of you, dear," she said. "I love the name you give my husband. And 'twas you who sowed some flowers 'mongst the graves in the churchyard. I lost my mother five months ago, and one day I found some sweet-peas growing on her grave. The vicar—he told me who had done it. I did feel pleased and proud."
"I wish I'd a grave in God's garden," said Noel eagerly. "I'd have flowers all over it. I've a garden of my own with a big Chris'mas tree in it. He's growing bigger and bigger, and at Chris'mas I'm going to have a party. Would your little boy like to come to it?"
"Indeed he would. Poor Bertie isn't strong. He can't go to school. He suffers from asthma."
Before the meal was over Noel was chattering away quite happily. And when it was done, Mrs. Thorn cleared away the dishes into the back kitchen, and her husband said he would wash them up whilst the letter was being written. Noel and Mrs. Thorn had a good deal of talk together over it. And finally this was what Mrs. Thorn wrote at his dictation, Noel signing the letter himself in big capital letters:
"MY DARLING MUMS,—""I never meant to make a mess, I truly didn't. I had nothing to do,I pulled out your drawers to tidy, and things spilt themselves, andDinah is making me out wicked in her letter, and Chris locked me in thecupboard, and I have nobody to be my friend. And I wish you were home,darling Mums, and now God's man has given me some nice dinner,and Mrs. Thorn is writing this. I like her, and Bertie is coming to myChris'mas tree. Good-bye, Mums, and please love me like God does, andI do try to be His good boy.""NOEL."
When this letter was written, Tom Thorn asked Noel if he had not better go home.
"I want to post my letter," he said, "but I've no stamp."
"They'll give you one at the post office. We haven't one in the house," said Mrs. Thorn, "or I would give it to you."
Noel put his hand in his pocket rather grandly.
"I have two pennies of my own. I'll go to the post office and buy one. Good-bye, God's man, and I like Bertie and Mrs. Thorn. I'll ask you all—every one—to my Chris'mas tree."
He ran off down the street to the village, and Mrs. Thorn looked after him and smiled:
"Quite the little man, isn't he? I wish our Bertie was as spry!"
Bertie looked at his mother.
"He's bigger nor me. I'd like well to see his Chris'mas tree."
Meanwhile, at home they were very anxious about Noel. Chris went down the garden to look for him and then into the church and churchyard. Mrs. Tubbs was worried.
"You shouldn't have been so high-handed, Master Chris. What shall we do if any harm has come to him? Even Nurse never locks him into a cupboard."
Chris was consumed with remorse. Diana did not comfort him.
"He may have tumbled into the pond at the bottom of our field and been drowned, or perhaps a motor has run over him and they've taken him to a hospital."
"He's done it to annoy us," said Chris crossly. "I wish Mums was home!"
When dinner-time came Noel was still absent.
Mrs. Tubbs made the two children have their dinner.
"And afterwards, I'll put on my bonnet, and go down to the village myself. Somebody is sure to have seen him."
And then about two o'clock Noel appeared with a broad smile all over his face.
To all the questions and exclamations, he made answer:
"I runned away because everybody was unkind, and I've written a big letter to Mums and tolded her what you dooed to me, and I got a stamp and posted it, and it's going in the train to Mums as fast as it can!"
Chris and Diana looked at each other in a puzzled kind of way. They knew how badly Noel wrote, and what a time it took him to form his letters.
"You're not speaking true!" said Diana severely.
"Let him alone!" said Mrs. Tubbs. "I'm sure I wish Nurse was back! I've been worried to death this morning. Come and have your dinner, Master Noel, and be a good boy."
"I've had some nice dinner," said Noel triumphantly, "but I'll have some more."
In a few minutes Chris had got his story out of him. Nothing would shake Noel's self-satisfaction until Diana took him to see the carpet in Mrs. Inglefield's boudoir. Mrs. Tubbs had done her best with it, but there were black ink stains and discoloration.
When Noel saw it his face lengthened.
"I'm truly sorry," he said. "I fink I'll save up my pennies to buy Mums a new carpet. I should like to give her it on her birfday."
Chris and Diana scoffed at him.
"A carpet costs pounds and pounds and pounds!"
But they said no more to him, and for the rest of the day they got on peaceably together.
The next morning brought Chris a letter from his chum, George Burke. He was at his uncle's, and he invited Chris to spend a whole day with him and sleep a night there.
Chris danced round the table with delight at the thought of it, and then remembered that he had been left in charge.
"George wants me to go to-morrow, Dinah; he says he'll meet me at the station if I come by the first train after breakfast."
"All right," said Diana, "you go. Inez is coming to spend the whole day to-morrow. We shall be all right."
Chris's face was very grave.
He knew what a pickle Inez was. How could he go away and leave them! Noel was utterly irresponsible. His mother had left him in charge. Diana was too dreamy to look after them. The events of yesterday had taught him the necessity of keeping Noel under his eye.
But George told him that visitors were expected, and that he must come the next day or he could not have a room. And it was no use asking George over now, for he seemed to have so much on hand.
And then poor Chris walked up and down the garden path in agony of longing and indecision. It did seem hard to refuse; he had been so looking forward to seeing George again. If only Nurse would hurry back! Surely Mums would not expect him to lose this treat! He mightn't get the chance again. What was he to do?
In the bottom of his heart he knew what he ought to do.
"I am Mother's deputy. She made me it, and I promised her I would look after the others while Nurse was away. It's no good. I can't go. I must write by this post and tell George so."
And after saying this firmly to himself Chris ran back to the house. His mother had left a packet of postcards to be sent to her if Diana did not want to write more. He took one of these and wrote:
"DEAR GEORGE,—Awfully sorry. Can't come. Mother away. Am in chargetill she comes back. Very disappointed. Good luck to you!""CHRIS."
Then, lest he should be tempted to reconsider the matter, he ran off to the post office and posted his card.
He was rather cross and irritable for the rest of the day; and when Diana begged him to make plans for to-morrow so that Inez might enjoy herself, he said:
"Oh, I'm tired of Inez! I don't want to play with girls all day long!"
"No one asked you to," snapped Diana. "You've got so grand since you went to school that nobody is good enough for you. Why don't you go off to this boy George? We don't want you. I can look after Noel and Inez as well as you."
"Can you? Did you look after Noel yesterday when I was out?"
"Oh, well, that was my story. But I shan't write stories to-morrow. Don't be cross, Chris. Don't you think we might have our dinner out on the lawn under the trees? It would be like a picnic. And I've got a lovely idea for afterwards. We'll dress up and act History. Miss Morgan said she used to at school. We'll do the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, and Rosamond swallowing the poison."
Chris did not look thrilled. His disappointment was too acute.
"I'd rather have a paper-chase," he said.
"Very well," said Diana good-naturedly, "we will, and we can begin tearing up the paper to-day. Noel can help us at that."
Chris tried to forget George's invitation, and for the rest of the day, he busied himself in various employments. He knew he was feeling disappointed and cross, but he endeavoured to be cheerful.
After all, he reminded himself, he was only carrying out his mother's wishes, and she was dearer to him than a dozen Georges.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The children were feeling rather tired: were all under the shade of the big tree on the lawn. They had had their paper-chase, and now Inez was proposing a bonfire at the end of the garden.
"Old Foster won't like it," said Chris.
"Well, we'll have a fire of some sort. I know! We'll have one in the middle of the grass, and be gipsies. We'll roast potatoes and boil the kettle for tea."
Inez sprang to her feet as the inspiration seized her.
"I don't believe Mrs. Tubbs will let us," said Diana. "She wouldn't let us have our dinner out here as we wanted to."
"We won't tell her, and she won't see us till we've done it. Let's pick up all the sticks we can!"
This appealed to them all; even Chris did not see any harm in it, but there was a terrible outcry from Noel when Inez attempted to break some little branches from his Christmas tree.
He thumped her in the back and yelled.
Inez only laughed.
"His under branches ought to be cut off," she said, "it would do him good. He's got too many of them."
"Cut your hair off!" cried Noel. "I'll cut some of it, you've got too much of it, and it will burn beautiful."
He picked up the garden shears and pursued her round the garden. Inez enjoyed the chase. They were all laughing, when suddenly a visitor appeared in their midst. She had walked out of one of the French windows in the drawing-room and come down the garden to them. It was Miss Constance Trent.
Noel dropped his shears and rushed at her.
"My Cherub!" she exclaimed as she embraced him. "I was feeling so dull his afternoon that I suddenly thought I would come and see you all and your mother. I have just been told that she's away."
In a moment she had sat down amongst them and made herself at home.
"I think I must stay and play with you. Captain Melton has gone back to London, and I've nobody who wants me."
The children were delighted to have her. She was told about Granny's illness, and about Chris's invitation.
And then she looked at Chris very thoughtfully for a moment.
"My dear boy," she said in her quick impetuous fashion, "there's no reason why you should not go and see your school friend and stay the night. Is Nurse away? I'll take her place: it will be great fun. My little aunt is always telling me I never do anything useful, and I can be a stern martinet when I choose. I'm sure your mother would like you to go. I'll stay till tea-time, and then I'll come over the first thing to-morrow morning. You can sleep the night, as you were asked, and come back to-morrow afternoon. And my car is at the gate with my chauffeur: he'll run you out in no time."
Chris wavered. Then he shook his head and said firmly:
"Thank you very much, but Mums made me her—her deputy, and it would be mean to get someone else to do my job. I'd rather stay, thank you."
Miss Constance tried to persuade him, but she soon saw it would be useless.
And so she stayed and played with them; and they gave up the idea of having a fire upon the lawn, because she told them it would burn the grass and leave a bare place. She told them she was going to marry Captain Melton very soon.
"And when I'm married I mean to have the cherub as my page. Aren't you very glad, Cherub, that I'm going to marry one of 'God's men'?"
Noel looked at her gravely.
"I don't want him to take you away."
"I don't mean to go back to London, Cherub. We are going to live in the country, not so very far from here. So I shall come flying along to see you when I'm unhappy."
"Oh!" said Diana, clasping her hands. "You'll never be unhappy if you are married. They always marry and live happy ever after!"
"So they do—I forgot that—I hope I shall be no exception to the rule."
Miss Constance left them when tea came.
Cassy brought it out into the garden and Diana, with pleased importance, poured out a cup of tea for Miss Constance and persuaded her to drink it before she went.
"When I grow up," Inez informed them, after they had waved a farewell to their grown-up visitor and heard her car tear along the road towards her home—"when I grow up, I shall marry and make my husband take me to the top of the Himalayas. I shan't stay in England, it's too pokey."
"P'r'aps you won't get a husband," said Chris, looking at her critically. "I shouldn't like to be him."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Because you're always wanting your way, and I should like my wife to want mine."
"I wouldn't have you as a husband for a hundred pounds," said Inez scornfully.
"When I grow up," Diana said softly, "I shall love my husband so much that I'll always do what he wants, and he'll love me so much that he'll always do what I want."
"And when I grow up," burst out Noel, "I shan't marry nobody, but I shall be a padre and build the biggest church in the world: that's what I'm going to do, and I'll live in it!"
"Clergymen don't live in churches," said Diana.
"I shall. Samuel in the Bible did, and Eli, and God and me will live there together."
"There you are again!" demonstrated Chris. "That's not the way to speak of God."
"Oh, I like to hear him!" said Inez. "He tells me a lot of things I never heard before."
And after they had had tea, and Chris and Diana began watering their garden, Inez and Noel wandered off into the churchyard together. It was Noel's favourite haunt.
"I like things that specially belong to God, don't you?" said Noel confidentially. "Old Mr. Sharpe, the man who keeps the big garden and who gave me my Chris'mas tree, he said that God had always liked gardens from the very beginning, and this is one of His special little gardens where people grow."
"But they're dead. They're buried, like my poor little puppy that Julia drowned. I buried him myself, and made him a little grave just like these."
Noel nodded.
"Yes, I know, but Mr. Wargrave telled me they're like the flowers in the winter time. They'll come out of the ground one day beautiful!"
Inez looked at him thoughtfully, then she said:
"I've made up my mind to belong to God. I talk a little like you do when I say my prayers. Your mother told me a lot. Let's come into the church, and I'll tell you what I mean to do."
So as the church door was always left unlocked they found their way in.
"You must whisper," Noel told her; "everybody whispers, except when they're here on Sunday."
They walked up the aisle, and sat down in one of the choir seats in the chancel. The sun was shining through the coloured window which represented our Lord as the Good Shepherd amongst his flock. It touched their heads with bars of gold. The church was quiet and cool and restful. Inez was impressed by the atmosphere.
"Are you positively certain that God is here to-day?" whispered Inez.
"Quite positive certain," said Noel in a shrill, eager whisper. "It's His Own House, you know. Mr. Wargrave says he leaves the door open for anyone who wants to speak to God."
Then screwing up his eyelids very tightly, Noel added:
"I can almost see Him, Inez."
Inez looked startled.
"Well, listen!" she whispered. "I've been reading about a traveller who stood up in the desert when he had nearly died, and when a deer crept out from somewhere and showed him a well. The traveller knew that God had sent the deer to him, and he took off his hat and knelt on the ground and he held up his hand and he vowed a vow."
"What's that?"
"It's a very solemn, on-your-honour promise. He told God that he would take service with Him for ever and ever and do what He told him. And he became a very great missionary after that."
"We had missionaries in India," said Noel. "What else?"
"Oh, that's all I need tell you, but I thought I'd rather like to give myself right away to God, and vow a solemn vow like that."
"Do it now," whispered Noel; "let me see you."
Inez hesitated: "Your mother said it was the Saviour who wanted me."
She pointed to the window.
"There He is! Do you think He'd like me to be one of His sheep?"
"Kneel down and hold up your hand!" urged Noel in an eager whisper.
So Inez knelt down and took off her hat and held up her hand very solemnly.
"Here I vow, O Jesus Christ, to be Your servant and do what You tell me for ever and ever. Amen."
There was silence in the church. Noel was kneeling by her side. He felt as if something tremendous was taking place.
And he was not far from wrong, for Inez was in dead earnest, and in after-days when she became quite an old woman with grandchildren of her own around her, she would tell them of the first stepping-stone towards the Better Land on which she placed her feet, in that quiet little country church, on a summer's evening in August. And then after silence, Inez spoke to her Saviour again:
"I'm sorry I've been such a wicked girl, but Mrs. Inglefield told me You had died for wicked people to forgive them, so please forgive me. And make me never want to kick or scratch or bite Julia again."
Then she got up on her feet and looked at Noel in a solemn, satisfied kind of way.
"There, that's done, and I can never go back! I've been wanting to do it ever since the picnic, but I didn't seem to know how. And when Dad and Mother come home they'll find their daughter an angel-child, who almost smiles when she's ill-treated, and is almost too good to live! And I shall end my days by being a missionaryess, out in the heathen countries where lions take you off to their dens."
Noel looked at her admiringly.
"And," went on Inez, as she took his hand and came out of the church into the sunshiny churchyard, "now you'll never be able to say that the Devil lives in my house any more."
But Noel shook his head doubtfully:
"He comes for visits sometimes—at least, he does to me."
"Well, they'll be very short visits," said Inez with much self-assurance.
And then they ran back to the others, and joined in more games, till it was time for Inez to go. Julia came for her. Neither she nor Noel told the others about their talk in church, but when Julia said to her on their way home:
"I hope you've been a good girl. Why you can't always behave like a little lady I can't think!"
Inez quickly rejoined:
"I always behave well with other people who behave well."
Then she added reflectively:
"And now I'm going to be quite a different sort of person. And I'm not going to do what anybody tells me except God. And I'm going to obey Him all my life long, so you needn't bother about me any more, Julia."
Julia stared at her in astonishment: then she said sharply:
"The skies will fall when you turn religious!"
Inez would not deign to reply to this, and their walk home was a silent one.
Chris and Diana were delighted the next morning to get a letter from their mother, saying that their Granny was much better, and that she hoped to be home at the end of the week.
This seemed to them too good to be true.
"Saturday is her birthday," said Diana. "Oh, I do hope she'll come Friday night, so that we'll have every minute of her birthday with her."
"I must get on with my present for her," said Chris.
"What are you going to give her, Dinah?"
"A hanky with beautiful fine crochet round it. Miss Morgan taught me a long while ago, and I finished it the other day."
Noel looked rather sorrowful.
"I've fluffing for her birfday, nulling, and I've only sixpence! What can I get her?"
"Go and buy something in the village," said Chris.
"But what shall I buy?"
Chris and Diana turned impatiently from him.
"We've chosen our presents, and you must choose yours," said Diana.
Noel began to cry in a miserable kind of way. He felt very small and helpless sometimes, and thought the others most unkind.
Cassy found him sitting on the stairs with tears rolling down his cheeks, and took pity on him.
"I'll get aunt to let me come to the village shop with you, and we'll choose together. We're sure to see something nice."
Noel cheered up. Mrs. Tubbs was willing to spare Cassy, so they started for the shop.
When they got there it seemed most confusing to Noel, for there were so many things and they were so mixed up together that it was very difficult to choose at all.
Cassy suggested a piece of scented soap, a china vase, a box of hairpins, and a needlebook, but Noel shook his head at all four.
At last he saw a very brightly coloured plate, with two dancing figures painted upon it. He got this for sixpence and carried it home triumphantly.
"Mums will be able to eat her tea on it. I know she'll like it."
When he got home he found Chris and Diana talking over decorations, which they meant to put up in honour of their mother's birthday. They spent all that afternoon in the nursery painting great letters in red paint, which they pasted on some brown paper. Chris composed the sentence and was very proud of it:
"Happy health, boundless wealth, and a very long lifeto our Mother!"
Then Diana ran out into the garden and let Noel help her pick some green leaves, which she sewed round the paper as a frame.
After this they got the long steps, and nailed it up at the top of the front porch, so that it should meet their mother's eyes as soon as she came in.
"But," said Diana as she read it aloud to Noel, "we haven't mentioned her birthday, Chris."
"No, of course not. We can't do that before her birthday comes. This is just for her coming home."
The days seemed to pass slowly. But another letter arrived saying that Mrs. Inglefield would be home on Friday evening, and Nurse arrived on Friday afternoon. Chris heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her. He felt his charge was over, and except for the boudoir carpet no harm had been done. On the whole, things had gone on quietly.
Mrs. Inglefield did not get to the station till six o'clock in the evening. She had ordered the car, and all three children were in it waiting for her.
When she made her appearance they all flew at her. Chris was not ashamed to hug her before the porters, and there seemed so much to tell her on the way home that the drive was far too short.
"I seem to have heard all about you from Diana's clever letters," Mrs. Inglefield said, smiling; "but I find that there is a lot to be told me."
She was delighted with the words over the porch.
"Dear me!" she said. "I am a very proud mother this evening; it's not only the skill that is shown, but the love behind it that delights me!"
The children spent their happy hour a little later than usual that night. The stains on the carpet told their tale, but Mrs. Inglefield did not appear to notice them.
When she was visiting Noel in bed, he poured out the whole account to her.
"I've tried hard to be good, Mums. I reely have, and God has tried hard to make me good. But when you're away I've nobody to love me, and then I feel mis'able—I haven't had one little tiny kiss from anyone in the world since you went away. Oh, yes, I have. Miss Constance kissed me, but she only came once."
"My baby!"
Mrs. Inglefield only breathed the words, but she gathered her little son into her arms as only a mother can, and Noel was deeply content as he lay there.
Then Chris was visited. Mrs. Inglefield had heard about his school friend's invitation, and she spoke very tenderly to him about it.
"You must go and see him, dear, now, if he is still there. If it is only ten miles, you could cycle over, could you not? But I like to feel that my boy did not fail me. I shall always rely on you now, Chris. You are like your father. His word is his bond. He never fails, never disappoints! You might have let Miss Constance relieve you, as she offered to do so, but I am glad you did not. If anything had happened, you would not have forgiven yourself. I am pleased with my eldest son, and very proud of him!"
Chris flushed all over. When his mother spoke like that, he felt he could die for her!
Diana clasped her mother round the neck when she came to her.
"Oh, Mums, how I love you!" she whispered. "The house is dreadful without you."
"I think I have missed you, darling, as much as you have missed me. But I wish that my daughter would show some of her love towards poor little Noel. I think he's the unhappy one of the trio when I am away."
Diana looked surprised.
"Is he, Mums? He always seems busy and fussing in and out. He's what we call 'all to himself' always, you know. He doesn't care about being with me."
"Why not, darling? Couldn't you mother him a little? He needs it. He is only a little boy, and has a very deep, affectionate heart."
"He—he's so huffy!" Diana said in a hesitating way. "Perhaps Chris and I do leave him alone too much. But he's so silly over that old Christmas tree of his. He talks as if it was alive."
"I do believe it is," said Mrs. Inglefield, laughing.
"Oh, well, Mums—I mean, he treats it as if it could think and hear and see, and then he gets so cross if we laugh at him."
"Don't laugh at him, and then he won't be cross. Try to sympathize with his ideas. I want my trio to be a united one—I want you all to love one another."
Diana looked very sober, then she took her mother's hand and laid it under her cheek.
"I'll try and be nice to him," she said earnestly; "but I couldn't mother him. I couldn't be like you, Mums, if I tried hard all my life. There's nobody like you in the world!"
With which emphatic utterance Mrs. Inglefield could not deal. She kissed her little daughter, and departed.
Mrs. Inglefield's birthday dawned very brightly. The birthday presents were given to her before breakfast, and she expressed herself as peculiarly pleased and satisfied with each.
Then she told her children of the treat that she proposed to give them. She had ordered a car to come for them all at ten o'clock, and they were going to drive away to the sea, which was just twenty miles away.
"It is a big car and we have room for Inez. Could you go and fetch her, Chris?"
Chris willingly consented. All the children were enchanted at the idea of going to the sea. But before Chris had started from the house, Inez appeared, almost hidden by the most enormous bouquet of flowers, which she carried with both hands.
"It's for you," she said, flying into Mrs. Inglefield's arms; "and I wish you many, many happy returns of your birthday. I picked every flower I could get in the garden, and I wish I could have carried more. I brought as many as I could hold."
Mrs. Inglefield expressed her gratitude and then told Inez of their intended outing. Inez of course was only too glad to be included, and Chris rode off on his cycle to tell Julia not to expect her home till the end of the day.
"You'll find Julia rather waxy," Inez said to Chris, "because she tried to prevent me picking some of the flowers in the greenhouse, so I pushed her into a potting-shed, and locked her in, and went on picking my flowers until I remembered something, so then I unlocked her in a hurry, and begged her pardon, and flew like the wind away from her with my flowers, and she started to chase me, and then she stopped, for she saw it was no good."
Mrs. Inglefield shook her head at Inez.
"I'm afraid I shan't like to look at these orchids, for they are forbidden spoils."
"Oh no, not really. It's only Julia. And she says herself she doesn't know what has come to me, for I'm so good. And she wasn't locked in more than two minutes—you see I forgot until I remembered. And I don't expect you know what I'm talking about, but I'll tell you when we're quite alone."
"I know!" said Noel, nodding his head importantly.
Mrs. Inglefield looked from one to the other with puzzled eyes, but she did not ask to be enlightened, and there was so much bustle and confusion getting ready for the expedition that there was no chance of any quiet talk.
They all packed themselves away in an open car, and had the most glorious two hours' drive, through woods and by the river's side, up and down hill, and then through a beautiful green valley down to the sea. It was rather a lovely little bay, with a few fishers' cottages standing on the green sloping cliffs above it. Very few people were on the beach. The tide was out, and there was a great stretch of golden sand with brown rocks, and delicious pools fringed with seaweed and sea anemones.
Mrs. Inglefield had a big luncheon-basket in the car, and the children were quite ready for their open-air meal.
Afterwards they played on the sands and waded into the sea, and Mrs. Inglefield sat amongst the rocks, watching them and reading a book by turns.
Presently Inez crept up to her.
"May I sit here and talk with you? Do you remember you said to me that I could get joined to God if I wanted to, and you told me about Jesus Christ loving me. That was on the day of our other picnic. Well, I thought and thought, and when you were away Noel and I managed it together. We went into the church and I made a vow. I told Jesus I would serve Him for ever and ever and do what He told me. And I went home and thought I was going to be exactly like an angel, but it didn't turn out as I thought. The next day I began all right; but in the afternoon Julia provoked me and I got mad and wild, until I remembered —and it was of a sudden—just like God laying His hand on my shoulder. I stopped, and Julia thought I was going to have a fit, and I went away to my room, and cried, for it all seemed no use. And then I thought I'd talk to God like Noel does, instead of saying prayers. And He seemed to forgive and comfort me. But I haven't been turned from a wicked child into a good child all at once."
"No, darling, of course not," said Mrs. Inglefield gently; "and you never will be. It will be always a fight to the end between good and evil. It isn't easy to be good with any of us, but it is possible with God's help and strength. Pray to Him, and you will find the oftener you pray the more you will remember. It is forgetfulness that makes us sin, isn't it?"
Inez listened with eager face. And then, child-like, she dashed away in a moment or two to join the others in their play.
It was late in the evening before they returned home, and they were all a little tired though very happy. There had been no quarrels and nothing to mar the enjoyment of Mrs. Inglefield's birthday treat.
As Noel was getting into bed he said to Nurse: "I s'pose birfdays are the happiest days in the year, aren't they?"
"I think they are, for children," said Nurse. "Some older people find them rather sad."
"Does Jesus Christ find His birfday sad?" Noel asked quickly.
It was one of Noel's questions that Nurse could not answer.
He went on:
"I'm sure He doesn't, because everybody in the world is happy on Chris'mas Day and that's His birfday, and He likes to see us happy, doesn't He?"
"Yes," said Nurse.
"And the next birfday in our family will be His birfday and mine," said Noel with intense satisfaction in his tone.
A few days after, Chris had the joy of seeing his school chum. He called in a car in the morning and took Chris off to spend a long day with him. And Chris enjoyed it all the more, because of his previous disappointment.
The holidays slipped away very fast, and soon school and lessons began again.
The next event was Miss Constance's wedding in London. Noel went up to it, as he was to be her page; and as Mrs. Inglefield was asked, too, she took Diana up as well, and they all stayed with Granny for the occasion.
Granny rather wondered at Noel's being asked to the wedding.
"I should have thought Diana would have made a pretty little bridesmaid. Why did she fix upon him?"
"She took a great liking to him," said Mrs. Inglefield. "Do you think that strange?"
"I suppose," said Granny, "that I know the other two best. They have lived with me and he hasn't. I still consider him a spoilt bit of goods."
"Oh no," remonstrated his mother: "I don't think I have spoilt him. He gets on better with his brother and sister now. Don't you notice it?"
"I notice that Diana's will gives way first," said Granny.
The wedding took place, and was a very pretty one. Noel's behaviour was perfect, but he always was good in a church, and the big London church with all its floral decorations and crowds of people awed him. When he returned home, his granny called him to her, and began to question him about it.
He described it all eagerly to her.
"Miss Constance was all in white. She looked like an angel, and God's man was smiling all over his face. She kissed me and he kissed me."
"Who do you mean by 'God's man'? The clergyman?"
"No. God sent him to get Inez and me out of the room—we asked God to send somebody and God sent him."
This needed explanation, and Noel gave it in his funny quaint way.
Granny told his mother afterwards that he was too religious for a child.
"No," said Mrs. Inglefield gravely. "His faith is real and big. I wish I had as much."
Before the children left Granny to return home, she presented them each with five shillings.
"What will you do with it?" she asked them.
"I shall spend mine on a little—just a little present for Chris," said Diana. "He collects stamps at school, and I'm going to buy some for him. The rest I shall spend on a big fat book of lined paper for my stories. I want to write a real long story, and I'm always short of paper."
"And what is Noel going to do with his?"
Noel looked up with shining eyes.
"I'm going to buy presents for my Chris'mas tree," he said; "and I'll begin doing it now, so as to get ready in time, and I'll show them to him. He's very dull and lonely, and thinks he's no good to nobody. It will cheer him up."
"Who do you mean?"
"Oh," said Diana, laughing, "he means his Christmas tree; he's just mad about it. He talks as if it can feel and think."
"Hans Andersen's book says they do fink," said Noel eagerly; "and, Granny, he's having such a dull time in our garden! Him and me long every day for Chris'mas to come."
Granny laughed at him; and then she laid her delicate old hand on his curly head.
"Lots of people have a very dull time and even Christmas brings no change to them," she said. "When you get old, it ceases to amuse you."
"But it's a birfday," cried Noel; "it's my biggest, wonder-fullest day in the year, and it's Jesus Christ's birfday, Granny."
"Yes; so it is."
Granny gave a little sigh, and sent them away from her; but when Mrs. Inglefield came to wish her good-bye, she said to her:
"I pitied you for your dull life in the country, but I find that I am having the dull time now. I suppose I miss the children. They do keep one amused."
"Come and stay with us," begged Mrs. Inglefield; but Granny shook her head.
"No, I'll live through my days. If I get very hipped, you can send me one of the chicks for a week or two. I am getting too old to move about, and most of my friends are in town—"
So Diana and Noel came back to their lessons, and autumn set in. The flowers in the garden faded; the leaves came flying down from the trees; and soon Noel's garden was the only one that had a good show of green in it.
One afternoon Inez came flying over in the greatest excitement. Her parents had returned very suddenly from abroad, and had taken her by surprise by arriving very late on the previous evening.
"And Mother has been talking to me this morning. I'm going to school directly after Christmas, and I'm glad of it. I'm tired, very tired of Julia."
"But I hoped you were getting on better with her lately!" said Mrs. Inglefield.
"Oh yes. I don't bite or kick or scratch her any more. We've made an agreement that we don't take hold of each other at all. She has left off grabbing at me, and if she scolds, I back away from her as fast as I can, so as not to tempt her to touch me. It's when she snatches hold of me that I get angry. But of course a proper Christian girl wouldn't get angry if they were snatched and shaken to pieces. I'm hardly a Christian at all yet. But perhaps I shall be better at school."
"How lovely to have your father and mother both home together," said Diana.
But Inez did not seem very joyful over the arrivals.
"Father thinks I'm too lanky, and mother says my fingernails are shocking! They're going hunting to-morrow. I wish they'd take me, but they won't. They're going to stay till Christmas. I shall have three people to please and to obey now. It's dreadfully difficult for me. May I stay to tea? Nobody wants me at home, and I told Julia I would try and stay here as long as I could."
"We shall be very glad to have you, dear," said Mrs. Inglefield; "if you are sure that your mother would like you to be here."
"Mother is lying down till tea, and Father is in the stables; he's going round the gardens afterwards. He says everybody has been neglecting everything, and he must wake them up. He'll make things hum now he's home again!"
"Is Daddy like that?" Diana asked her mother.
But Mrs. Inglefield would not answer. Noel and Diana were going for their walk with Miss Morgan, and she told Inez that she had better go with them.
Inez was delighted to do so. She and Diana walked on in front together and Diana resumed her wonderful, never-ending story about "Ada and Gertrude," whose adventures thrilled Inez through and through.
Noel walked with Miss Morgan. He rather preferred a talk and a walk with a grown-up person. They were delighted when Miss Morgan suggested going to Mr. Sharpe's nursery gardens, as she wanted to take home a plant to her mother.
Bessie, the daughter, received them with a grave face.
"Dad is ill. Been in bed for six weeks with rheumatic fever. But his foreman will do what you want. I'll call him."
Miss Morgan expressed her sympathy for old Mr. Sharpe; then she and the little girls followed the foreman through the gardens to the glasshouses. But Noel begged to see Mr. Sharpe. He was devoted to him, and after Bessie had been upstairs, she came down saying:
"Dad would dearly like to see you, Master Noel. He's quite comfortable this afternoon; he's on the mend, I hope, but the doctor says he'll never work in his garden again; and if he knew it, I believe it would fair break his heart."
Noel went up the narrow stairs on tiptoe, then found himself in a big comfortable-looking bedroom.
Upon a large bed drawn close to the window, lay old Mr. Sharpe. His face looked thin and worn with suffering, but he greeted Noel with his cheery smile.
"Hulloo, little Master Christmas, how are you? And how's the little tree?"
"I'm very well, and so's my tree. Only think, Mr. Sharpe, it will be not three months to Chris'mas! I'm counting up every week. I fink my Chris'mas tree is a little happier now. You see, he didn't much like it when all the flowers were out smelling so beautiful and looking so pretty! I raver fink they weren't very nice to him, and he felt ugly, and no use to anybody. Chris and Diana would point their fingers at him and say that he looked higeous and was only taking up room, and doing nothing at all. 'He doesn't even smell,' they said; but I like his smell, 'specially after rain, and he's been growing green tips all over him. Now he knows he hasn't much more time to wait, and then he'll come into his glory."
"Come into his glory," repeated Mr. Sharpe, looking at Noel with a wistful smile; "do you know, little master, I've been lying here in much pain and trouble, and then I've taken to think over my plants, and I've learnt a lot of rare lessons from them. My days of work and usefulness are over—I'm in a bed now doing nothing, and shall do nothing for a long time to come. My hands and feet are that twisted that I doubt if they'll ever come straight again. My Bessie, she thinks I don't know, but I do—I know I'm going to be a bedridden cripple for the rest of my life—"
"Oh! Mr. Sharpe," cried Noel, "but God will make you well again. We'll ask Him to do it at once."
"Ay, ay, He could if He would. I've prayed quick and hasty-like, but now I tell the good Lord that He must have His will with me, and I'll be content. I've just got transplanted into a quiet bed by myself; and, like your little tree, I'm a useless hulk to some eyes, doing no good to no one. That will be my fate in the future. But my Gardener and Master has put me here, and I'm to wait till I'm called into my glory. My Christmas will come by and by, when I shall be taken up and carried into the king's palace. I shall see there what I was meant for."
Noel did not follow all this, but he caught the idea.
"You mean that people can be like Chris'mas trees, and have a very lonely, dull time, and then God takes them and lights them up in heaven and covers them with glory. That's what I shall do to my tree. I shall cover him with glory."
"Yes, we shall be 'covered with glory,'" said Mr. Sharpe, his eyes shining with a strange light. "What does it matter if we lie in bed or work in our garden? We have only to do what our Master tells us. And we shan't have to wait too long. We have such a happy life coming."
"And you're like my tree. You're just waiting," said Noel.
Then he began to tell the old man of all the presents that he had bought for his tree with his granny's money.
"And Ted is making me some frogs, and Mums is going to help, and I'm going to ask everybody I know to come to it. And Chris and Diana won't laugh at him any more then."
Bessie came in at this juncture. She was afraid her father would be tired.
"The little gentleman has done me good," said the old man happily. "We have been reminding each other of our good time coming."
Then he turned to Noel.
"There be many who would do well to be like your fir tree. Be quiet and content in a dull life and go on quietly growing and waiting. Such souls may grow faster than some of the busy workers. Good-bye, little laddie, and come again and see the old man if you can."
"I'll tell Mums, and she'll come, too," said Noel, clattering down the stairs.
He joined the others with rather a sober face, and tried to repeat to Miss Morgan what the old man had said to him. But she did not seem to understand so well as his mother, and when he told her all about it, she exclaimed:
"Dear old man! I suppose his time is coming, and God wants him to lie still and think about it. I shall go and see him to-morrow."
"And he's just like my Chris'mas tree," said Noel, summing up the whole in his usual slow, deliberate way.
It was the day before Christmas Eve.
Though the time had gone slowly to Noel, Christmas had come at last.
The house was full of the chatter of the children. Chris had come home from school the previous evening, and he was in the best of spirits, for he was head of his form, and his report was a very good one.
It seemed as if it were going to be a real old-fashioned Christmas. There was hard frost and bright sun.
Directly after breakfast Mrs. Inglefield suggested that they should all go to the woods, and bring home some evergreens and holly.
"Take the wheelbarrow. General Herbert said you could cut as much as you like in the nearest wood. I dare say you will find Mr. Wargrave and his helpers there getting some green for decorating the church. I wish I could come with you, but I am too busy."
"Oh, Mums, when, when shall my tree be brought in?" Noel was in such a state of excitement that he could hardly contain himself.
"This afternoon, darling. You must wait till then. I have asked Foster to come round and dig it up."
A few moments later and the three children were out on the hard, frosty road wheeling their barrow along and talking hard as they went.
"Inez is going to have a party," Diana told Chris; "her father and mother have let her ask who she likes. I wouldn't have them for my father and mother for worlds! They never go about with her or have her with them, but Inez says they're nicer to her than they used to be. I think she isn't so disagreeable herself. She's going to have a conjurer at her party. It will be like our London parties, Chris. It is going to be on New Year's Eve, and we are all asked, and Ted is asked, too, and he's so much better that he can sit up now, and stand on his feet sometimes."
"But Inez's party won't be as good as mine," burst out Noel; "mine is going to be to-morrow night, and everybody is coming to it."
"Oh, we've heard of nothing but your Christmas tree for ever so long," said Diana a little impatiently. "Fancy, Chris! He has asked nearly all the village children, and Foster's little boy, and the baker's little girls, and ever so many people that he speaks to, and whom we don't know at all."
"I know them," said Noel stoutly.
"I hope you'll have presents for them all," said Chris.
Noel looked a little anxious.
"Mums says we shall, and I've bought ever so many with Granny's money."
"He keeps them hidden away in a box under his bed," said Diana.
"Yes," nodded Noel, "Mums and me are going to do it ourselves in secret."
He began to caper up and down. Diana tried to sober him.
"Nurse says you'll be ill of excitement if you don't take care. She said to Mrs. Tubbs that she knew a boy who got so excited that he had fits."
"What are fits?" asked Noel.
"You fall down and bite your tongue in half, and go black in the face!" said Chris cheerfully. "A chap at school did that once, and he had to be sent home for good."
But nothing could damp Noel's spirits.
When they came to the wood, they found others before them there. Mr. Wargrave had half a dozen of his choir-boys, and they were all as busy as they could be.
Noel was very interested in the decoration of the church. He asked Mr. Wargrave if he could help in it, and before he returned home he went into the church with the young vicar.
"It's for Jesus' birfday, isn't it? He'll like His house to look pretty."
"Yes," answered Mr. Wargrave. "I don't believe in decorating our own houses, and leaving God's house untouched."
Noel stood looking at the holly and evergreens which had been put together in a heap at the bottom of the church.
And then a gardener appeared with some white flowers from the Hall. Lady Alice had sent them. The vicar received them with much pleasure.
"I wish," said Noel, "that I could give something of my own to Jesus for His birfday. He likes things that grow, doesn't He?"
Then an idea struck him, and he darted away through the churchyard gate into their own garden. There he found Foster sweeping up the leaves on the paths.
"Thought I'd come a bit earlier and tidy-up for Christmas. I'm a-goin' to dig up your tree, Master Noel, this afternoon."
Noel did not hear him. He was standing in front of his tree talking to it earnestly:
"Your grand day is nearly here, you know, and very soon you'll be the most important person in the house, but I reely fink a part of you must be a birfday present to Jesus. You'd like to be right in God's house, wouldn't you? Just a bit of you, it's only like having your hair cut. It won't reely hurt you."
Then he called out to Foster to come and help him. But when Foster heard that he wanted to cut off one of the branches, he shook his head.
"Don't 'ee do it, Master Noel, 'twill spoil the look of it. You wouldn't go for making it just a guy, when it's grown so nice all round."
"It's to go into the church," said Noel firmly. "Mr. Wargrave is putting all the nicest holly and flowers there, and my Chris'mas tree would like to be there, too. Not the whole of him, only a bit."
So after some further discussion a branch was cut off, and Noel bore it into the church with a mixture of reverence and pride in his heart.
If it had been a casket of gold or of precious stones, it could not have been given into the vicar's hands with more solemnity of purpose.
"It's my darling tree. He wants a bit of himself to be in church. It's a present for Jesus."
And Mr. Wargrave understood in a moment, and though there was a murmur amongst his helpers, "Not that ugly old branch," he hushed them at once, and with his own hands arranged the branch in the middle of the pulpit.
Noel looked at it there with a smile all over his face, and then he trotted home to his dinner, but never said a single word to anyone of what he had done.
The event of that day was the carrying of the fir tree into the house. It was dug up carefully, and then put into a big pot, Noel watching the process throughout with big anxious eyes. The drawing-room had been emptied of its furniture, and Mrs. Inglefield and Noel were the only ones allowed to go inside.
It was enough to make any small boy feel important, for he and his mother were going to trim the tree themselves, and it took a long time to do it. Only a very little was done on this afternoon, and then the room was locked up until the next day.
Mrs. Inglefield had noticed that a branch was missing, and Noel's explanation had brought a smile to her face.
"A very nice thought, my boy. We shall like to see it in church on Christmas Day."
There seemed so much to do that day that time flew. The children put holly and ivy and mistletoe all over the house, even twining it round the banisters of the staircase.
When Christmas Eve came, Chris and Diana went up to the nursery to get their presents ready for Noel, and their mother and the servants. Noel went into the drawing-room with his mother, and was not seen for the whole morning. When he appeared at dinner, he said triumphantly:
"It is finished, and it looks glorious!"
But when Noel was not looking Mrs. Inglefield slipped into the room and put a few finishing touches to the tree. At half-past four the children were receiving their guests.
There was a big tea laid out in the nursery. The Vicar, Ted and Inez were the chief guests. But just before they sat down Miss Constance and her husband appeared. They had driven over in a car from their house, which was twenty-five miles away, but Noel had written in his own handwriting asking them to come, and they did not disappoint him.
Then Tom Thorn, his wife, and little boy arrived, the postman, the baker, who was a widower, brought his three little girls, and there were about a dozen other children, eight of them choir-boys.
Altogether there were thirty guests, including the three children. Noel felt he was master of the ceremonies, but to his brother's and sister's surprise, he suddenly turned shy. And during tea, he spoke to nobody. His excitement was so great that he could hardly eat, and it left him speechless.
Mrs. Inglefield called Mr. Wargrave out of the room directly after tea. They were going to light up the tree, but Noel's quick eyes spied them and he slipped out after them.
"I must see it all, Mums, from the very beginning," he said.
It was a magnificent tree. To Noel it seemed the most wonderful sight he had seen in his life, and when the candles were ablaze, and it glittered and shone through all its frosted tinsel and finery, he simply stood still gazing at it with open eyes and mouth.
"It's as good, better, much better than the picture books, Mums," he gasped. "Why, it is good enough to be in heaven!"
"Run and bring your guests in," said his mother, smiling. "We want them to get all the good of the candles when they are lighted."
So Noel ran upstairs, and down trooped the merry throng. Soon Mrs. Inglefield and the vicar were cutting the presents off the tree. Every one had been provided for, and Noel trotted round and round, giving all of them their gifts.
Mrs. Inglefield made a little speech.
"This is entirely my little boy's idea," she said; "he bought the tree early last spring, and has taken the greatest care of it ever since. And a great many of the presents have been bought with his own money. We wish you a very happy Christmas, and hope that you will enjoy it with all your hearts."
Then all the children clapped vociferously.
"Well," said Noel, going up to Chris and Diana, who were in one corner together, "what do you think of my Chris'mas tree now?"
It was the only bit of triumph he showed that evening. Chris and Diana meekly said:
"It's one of the best Christmas trees we have ever seen."
And every one agreed with them.
Chris received a box of fretwork tools, Diana a beautiful leather manuscript book with clasps, and Noel, to his surprise, a big paint-box. These, they discovered, were given to them by Miss Constance. Their mother's presents were kept till Christmas Day.
The only sad part of the evening to Noel was when the candles were put out, and the tree stood there stripped of most of its finery and looking very forlorn. He lingered on in the room after the others had left it.
His mother understood the wistful look in his eyes.
"We must let him rest here all to-morrow, darling," she said, "and then the next day Foster will take him out into the garden, and put him back into his own corner. He will be quite happy there, and we'll hope that next Christmas, he may give us this pleasure again. I expect he will be much bigger then."
Noel brightened up a little.
"I wish he could have stayed lighted up for ever. Don't you think he was much more beautiful than Hans Andersen's tree, Mums?"
"I daresay he was," said his mother, laughing. "Now run along, I am going to lock this room up again."
"Well, Cherub," said Miss Constance to Noel as she was wishing him good-bye, "has this quite come up to your expectations? I have never come across a small boy before who grew his own Christmas tree. I think it quite a good idea. Perhaps I had better start doing it. What do you think? Anyhow, you've managed to give us all a lot of pleasure. I really don't see that you'll have any left for Christmas Day, we have had it all beforehand."