and each in a faded and closely-buttoned coat, the girl with a blue
hood pulled over her rosy face, and the boy with a fur cap closely
tied about his ears by a red comforter. The two drew a hand-sled, and
peered about under the tall trunks as they went stamping through the
deep snow. How they shouted as they spied the little pine trees
perking up their heads! How they tossed aside the snow, and worked
away with their jackknives, hacking at the little pine trees till they
had cut them all down, all ready to be piled up on their hand-sled.

"Where are you going?" asked the giddy little birch of the pines,
peeping out from a small window in her snow-house. Her nose was
purple, and her fingers stiff with cold; but down under the earth her
feet were warm, and that was pleasant, at any rate.

"It is of no consequence where," said the pines, in their grimmest
Scandinavian.

The birch simply said, "O!" and drew in her little purple nose, hoping
heartily they were all going to be burned, as that would be a good end
and riddance of them.

But the little pines were not going to be burned; they were going away
to the city that lay misty and still beyond the frozen meadows.
Stretched out stiffly on the hand-sled, they were jostled along out
through the wood, over the frozen turnpike, and across the mill-dam to
Boston.

They alighted at the Boylston Market, and were ranged in a row against
the dark brick wall.

"How much happens in a very short time!" they said to each other; "all
those gaudy, chattering trees left without a leaf to cover them, our
own friends all gone on their travels, and we here in the city,
wrapped in our warm winter furs."

It was the Christmas week. The shop windows were gay with toys and
gorgeous Christmas offerings; the shop doors were opening and shutting
on the crowd that came and went through them. A bustling throng of
people passed incessantly up and down the narrow sidewalks, and
carriages of all descriptions blocked the crossings, or drove
recklessly over the frozen pavement.

The old woman in the quilted black hood and shaggy cape, who had
charge of the little pine trees, drove a brisk trade that day in her
wreaths and holly; but though many people stopped to admire the little
pines, and even to ask their price, no purchaser had yet appeared for
them.

The old dame was rubbing her mittened hands briskly together, and
mumbling in a displeased way at the pine trees, when a carriage drew
su