moving silently about--the butler. He came forward to relieve
me, deftly, of my hat and overcoat. Well, I had it at last, this
establishment to which I had for so long looked forward. And yet that
evening, as I hesitated in the hall, I somehow was unable to grasp that
it was real and permanent, the very solidity of the walls and doors
paradoxically suggested transientness, the butler a flitting ghost. How
still the place was! Almost oppressively still. I recalled oddly a story
of a peasant who, yearning for the great life, had stumbled upon an
empty palace, its tables set with food in golden dishes. Before two days
had passed he had fled from it in horror back to his crowded cottage and
his drudgery in the fields. Never once had the sense of possession of
the palace been realized. Nor did I feel that I possessed this house,
though I had the deeds of it in my safe and the receipted bills in my
files. It eluded me; seemed, in my bizarre mood of that evening, almost
to mock me. "You have built me," it seemed to say, "but I am stronger
than you, because you have not earned me." Ridiculous, when the years
of my labour and the size of my bank account were considered! Such,
however, is the verbal expression of my feeling. Was the house empty,
after all? Had something happened? With a slight panicky sensation I
climbed the stairs, with their endless shallow treads, to hurry through
the silent hallway to the schoolroom. Reassuring noises came faintly
through the heavy door. I opened it. Little Biddy was careening round
and round, crying out:--"To-morrow's Chris'mas! Santa Claus is coming
tonight."

Matthew was regarding her indulgently, sympathetically, Moreton rather
scornfully. The myth had been exploded for both, but Matthew still
hugged it. That was the difference between them. Maude, seated on the
floor, perceived me first, and glanced up at me with a smile.

"It's father!" she said.

Biddy stopped in the midst of a pirouette. At the age of seven she was
still shy with me, and retreated towards Maude.

"Aren't we going to have a tree, father?" demanded Moreton,
aggressively. "Mother won't tell us--neither will Miss Allsop."

Miss Allsop was their governess.

"Why do you want a tree?" I asked.

"Oh, for Biddy," he said.

"It wouldn't be Christmas without a tree," Matthew declared, "--and
Santa Claus," he added, for his sister's benefit.

"Perhaps Santa Claus, when he sees we've got this big house, will think
we do