til the afternoon before Christmas, when the tree was being
decorated, that the golden star was unwrapped and taken out from the
paper.

"Here is something else," said the sweet-faced lady. "We must hang this
on the tree. Paul took such a fancy to it that I had to get it for him.
He will never be satisfied unless we hang it on too."

"Oh, yes," said some one else who was helping to decorate the tree; "we
will hang it here on the very top."

So the little star hung on the highest branch of the Christmas-tree.

That evening all the candles were lighted on the Christmas-tree, and
there were so many that they fairly dazzled the eyes; and the gold and
silver balls, the fairies and the glass fruits, shone and twinkled in
the light; and high above them all shone the golden star.

At seven o'clock a bell was rung, and then the folding doors of the room
where the Christmas-tree stood were thrown open, and a crowd of children
came trooping in.

They laughed and shouted and pointed, and all talked together, and after
a while there was music, and presents were taken from the tree and given
to the children.

How different it all was from the great wide, still sky house!

But the star had never been so happy in all its life; for the little boy
was there.

He stood apart from the other children, looking up at the star, with his
hands clasped behind him, and he did not seem to care for the toys and
the games.

At last it was all over. The lights were put out, the children went
home, and the house grew still.

Then the ornaments on the tree began to talk among themselves.

"So that is all over," said a silver ball. "It was very gay this
evening--the gayest Christmas I remember."

"Yes," said a glass bunch of grapes; "the best of it is over. Of course
people will come to look at us for several days yet, but it won't be
like this evening."

"And then I suppose we'll be laid away for another year," said a paper
fairy. "Really it seems hardly worth while. Such a few days out of the
year and then to be shut up in the dark box again. I almost wish I were
a paper doll."

The bunch of grapes was wrong in saying that people would come to look
at the Christmas-tree the next few days, for it stood neglected in the
library and nobody came near it. Everybody in the house went about very
quietly, with anxious faces; for the little boy was ill.

At last, one evening, a woman came into the room with a servant. The
woman wore the ca