e Tree? Why, I
was near forgetting it. Come here, Pat, you rascal, and hand it down to
me. It's a pretty, shining thing for my Nelly, as bright as her eyes.
Hand it down to me, Pat. I want to put it on her pretty neck."

The gift was a beautiful flexible snake of opals in gold, with diamonds
for its eyes and its forked tongue, such a jewel as the heart of woman
could not resist. The General himself clasped the ornament on Nelly's
neck, where it lay emitting soft fires of milky rose and emerald.

There was a little pause. The Tree seemed to be finished. The women-folk
began to clear their throats for the _Adeste Fideles_ with which the
festivity concluded. Afterwards there was to be a glass of champagne all
round.

The pause, however, was a device of the General's to give more effect to
what was to follow. Captain Langrishe had been standing apart, his shy
and modest air commending him the more to the women who thought him so
handsome and the men who knew him for heroic; for had not Pat sung his
praises? And to be sure, the women's hearts swelled at beholding a hero
taking part in their own particular festivity of the year, a hero that
is to say with his heroism brand-new upon him and from the outside
world, so to speak. They were so accustomed to a hero for a master all
the year round, that in that particular connection they hardly thought
upon him.

"I believe, after all," said Sir Denis, as though he were talking to
children--it was his way with women and children and dependents and
animals--"I believe there's something for my girl which she'll think
more of than anything else. It's hidden just down here at the foot of
the Tree, and might very easily be over-looked if one didn't know
beforehand that it was there. Captain Langrishe, will you give this
little packet to my Nelly? It's your gift. She'll like it from you."

Langrishe came forward, looking radiantly happy and handsome, and
wearing withal that look of becoming shyness. He extracted from
somewhere near the roots of the Tree a white paper-covered packet, very
tiny and tied with blue ribbon, which he undid with quick, nervous
fingers. When he had laid the covering aside it revealed itself as a
little ring-case. Opening it, he took out a beautiful old-fashioned
ring, a large pearl surrounded by diamonds. He held it for a second
between his fingers; and turning round he went to Nelly's side and
taking her hand lifted it to his lips. Then he slipped the ring