Guy, keeping his temper beautifully, 'that we might
come and help.'

'Very kind of your mother to arrange it like that. But _I_ happen to be
in charge of the tree, and I don't want any outside assistance.'

The children turned away without a word. When they got outside Guy said:

'I hate Mrs. Philkins!'

'We oughtn't to hate anybody,' said Mabel.

'She isn't anybody--at least, not anybody in particular,' said Phyllis;
'I heard father say so.'

'She wouldn't have been such a pig to us if she'd known what we'd
brought for the tree,' said Phyllis.

'I'm glad she didn't know. I wish we hadn't done the things at all,'
said Guy; 'it's always the way if you try to do good to others.'

'It _isn't_,' said the others indignantly; 'you know it isn't.'

'That's right!' said Guy aggravatingly, 'let's begin to quarrel about
it--_us_--that would just please her. Let's drop the whole lot into the
canal, and say no more about it.'

'Oh _no_!' cried both the girls together, clutching the precious parcels
they carried.

'But what's the good?' said Guy; 'we don't know anyone who's got a
Christmas-tree to give them to.'

Phyllis stopped short on the pavement, struck motionless by an idea.

'I know,' she said: 'we'll have a tree of our very own.'

'What's the good if there's no one to see it?'

'We'll ask someone to see it.'

'Who?'

'Sir Christopher!'

The daring and romance of this idea charmed even Guy. But he thought it
would be better not to ask Sir Christopher to come to their house:
'Servants are so odd,' he said; 'they might be rude to him, or
something. No; we'll get it ready, and we'll wheel it round after dark,
and ask him to let us light it in his yard. Then he won't think we're
trying to pry into his house.'

Half an hour later Guy staggered in, bearing a fir-tree.

'Only ninepence,' he said; 'it's a bit lop-sided, but we can tie ivy on
or something to make that right. I'm glad that old cat wouldn't let us
help. It's much jollier like this.'

The tree was planted in a pot that a dead azalea had lived in; and Mrs.
Philkins was quite forgotten in the joy of trimming their own tree.
Besides the things they had made there were the lovely things they had
bought--stars and flags, and a sugar bird-cage with a yellow bird in it,
and a glass boat with glass sails, and a blue china bird with a tail of
spun glass.

Guy went out and borrowed a wheelbarrow from the gardener who
cut their grass when it was cut, a