shocked.

For the front door of the house had suddenly burst open, and in rushed a
tall woman heavily veiled, and generously cloaked in broadtail. As she
entered, she had involuntarily called on her Maker for help; and as if
the response were not sufficiently prompt, she sought to enlist the
additional aid of her sister, whose name she moaned rather than called.

At her entrance the buzzing library became as silent as the third
strike; but when she began to repeat her sister's name with increasing
anguish, there were quick movements to points of vantage near the door,
and several of the more venturesome boys poked their heads out and
stared.

The confusion in the hall did not last long, however, for Mrs. Guilford
came flying from the parlor, and taking her sister into her capable arms
led her gently down the hall and into a side room, the door of which she
quickly closed behind them.

"What are 'vandals'?" asked Biscuit Westfall of Sube as the company
began to breathe again.

"Vandals?"

"Yes, vandals. She said vandals had desecrated the resting place of her
poor dear Clarence."

"Did she say that?"

"She sure did! What are they, anyway? Are they an'thing like
woodchucks?"

At this point Mr. Guilford threw back the curtains, and the assemblage
trooped into the parlor with exclamations of great joy. The servants
slipped in from the kitchen to see the tree and watch the children; and
Mrs. Guilford found them clustered about the parlor door as she came
softly out of her sister's room a few moments later.

Mr. Guilford had already assumed the role of an uncostumed Santa Claus,
and the sounds of merriment were increasing with each package he clipped
from the tree and delivered, and when Mrs. Guilford picked up a pair of
shears and began to assist him, the uproar became deafening.

Suddenly all was hushed by an anguished moan.

As Mrs. Guilford dropped her shears and started for the door her worst
suspicions were confirmed; for she caught sight of the towering form of
her widowed sister with her hands pressed closely together in an
attitude of supplication, and her eyes turned heavenwards.

"God help me! It's the very one!" she mumbled over and over. "God help
me! It's the very one!"

In an instant Mrs. Guilford was at her sister's side; but her efforts to
lead her from the room were futile.

"No! I must examine it! I have proof!... I can tell!... I can identify
it!... When I saw that it had been cut down