"But we have nothing to do with the children's stockings," said Mrs.

Seelye. "They may hang up as many as they like. That's at home. This is in the church."

"O, in the church! I thought you said it was in the house--in people's houses," said Charity.

"So it is; but _this_ tree is to be in the church."

"What tree?"

"La! how stupid you are, Charity," exclaimed her aunt. "Didn't Mrs.

Seelye tell you?--the tree the other church are gettin' up."

"Oh--" said Charity. "Well, you can't hinder 'em, as I see."

"Don't want to hinder 'em! What should we hinder 'em for? But we don't want 'em to get all our chil'en away; that's what we're lookin' at."

"Do you think they'd go?"

"Mr. Seelye's afraid it'll thin off the school dreadful," said Mr.

Seelye's helpmate.

"They're safe to go," added Mrs. Marx. "Ask children to step in and see fairyland, and why shouldn't they go? I'd go if I was they. All the rest of the year it ain't fairyland in Shampuashuh. I'd go fast enough."

"Then I don't see what you are goin' to do about it," said Charity, "but to sit down and count your chickens that are left."

"That's what we came to tell you," said the minister's wife.

"Well, tell," said Charity. "You haven't told yet, only what the other church is going to do."

"Well, we thought the only way was for us to do somethin' too."

"Only not another tree," said Lois. "Not that, for pity's sake."

"Why not?" asked the little minister's wife, with an air of being somewhat taken aback. "Why haven't we as good a right to have a tree as they have?"

"_Right_, if you like," said Lois; "but right isn't all."

"Go on, and let's hear your wisdom, Lois," said her aunt. "I s'pose you'll say first, we can't do it."

"We can do it, perhaps," said Lois; "but, aunt Anne, it would make bad feeling."

"That's not our look-out," rejoined Mrs. Marx. "We haven't any bad feeling."

"No, not in the least," added Mrs. Seelye. "_We_ only want to give our children as good a time as the others have. That's right."

"'Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory,'" Mrs. Armadale's voice was here heard to say.

"Yes, I know, mother, you have old-fashioned ideas," said Mrs. Marx; "but the world ain't as it used to be when you was a girl. Now everybody's puttin' steam on; and churches and Sunday schools as well as all the rest. We have organs, and choirs, and concerts, and celebrations, and fairs, and festivals; and if we don't go with the crowd, they'll leave us behind, you see."

"I don't believe in it all!" said Mrs. Armadale.

"Well, mother, we've got to take the world as we find it. Now the children all through the village are all agog with the story of what the yellow church is goin' to do; and if the white church don't do somethin', they'll all run t'other way--that you may depend on.

Children are children."

"I sometimes think the grown folks are children," said the old lady.

"Well, we ought to be children," said Mrs. Seelye; "I am sure we all know that. But Mr. Seelye thought this was the only thing we could do."

"There comes in the second difficulty, Mrs. Seelye," said Lois. "We cannot do it."

"I don't see why we cannot. We've as good a place for it, quite."

"I mean, we cannot do it satisfactorily. It will not be the same thing.

We cannot raise the money. Don't it take a good deal?"

"Well, it takes considerable. But I think, if we all try, we can scare it up somehow."

Lois shook her head. "The other church is richer than we are," she said.

"That's a fact," said Charity.

Mrs. Seelye hesitated. "I don't know," she said,--"they have one or two rich men. Mr. Georges--"

"O, and Mr. Flare," cried Madge, "and Buck, and Setterdown; and the Ropers and the Magnuses."

"Yes," said Mrs. Seelye; "but we have more people, and there's none of 'em to call poor. If we get 'em interested--and those we have spoken to are very much taken with the plan--very much; I think it would be a great disappointment now if we were to stop; and the children have got talking about it. I think we can do it; and it would be a very good thing for the whole church, to get 'em interested."

"You can always get people interested in play," said Mrs. Armadale.

"What you want, is to get 'em interested in work."

"There'll be a good deal of work about this, before it's over," said Mrs. Seelye, with a pleased chuckle. "And I think, when they get their pride up, the money will be coming."

Mrs. Marx made a grimace, but said nothing.

"'When pride cometh, than cometh shame,'" said Mrs. Armadale quietly.

"O yes, some sorts of pride," said the little minister's wife briskly; "but I mean a proper sort. We don't want to let our church go down, and we don't want to have our Sunday school thinned out; and I can tell you, where the children go, there the fathers and mothers will be going, next thing."

"What do you propose to do?" said Lois. "We have not fairly heard yet."

"Well, we thought we'd have some sort of celebration, and give the school a jolly time somehow. We'd dress up the church handsomely with evergreens; and have it well lighted; and then, we would have a Christmas tree if we could. Or, if we couldn't, then we'd have a real good hot supper, and give the children presents. But I'm afraid, if we don't have a tree, they'll all run off to the other church; and I think they're going already, so as to get asked. Mr. Seelye said the attendance was real thin last Sabbath."

There followed an animated discussion of the whole subject, with every point brought up again, and again and again. The talkers were, for the most part, Charity and Madge, with the two ladies who had come in; Mrs.

Armadale rarely throwing in a word, which always seemed to have a disturbing power; and things were taken up and gone over anew to get rid of the disturbance. Lois sat silent and played with her spoon. Mrs.

Barclay and Philip listened with grave amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Well, I can't sit here all night," said Charity at last, rising from behind her tea-board. "Madge and Lois,--just jump up and put away the things, won't you; and hand me up the knives and plates. Don't trouble yourself, Mrs. Barclay. If other folks in the village are as busy as I am, you'll come short home for your Christmas work, Mrs. Seelye."

"It's the busy people always that help," said the little lady propitiatingly.