They'll have the tree up by now, and it's long after ten.

Mother said that we were to take turns going down in the dark and putting our presents wherever we wanted to." "I want to be last of all," Kit announced.

"Doris, you come on in my room and help me wrap and tie the bundles.

Good-night, sweet sisters; happy dreams." But for the next hour after the lights went out, strange, flitting figures slipped through the halls and down-stairs into the front room, where the giant hemlock stood.

And the very last one of all was clad in a bath robe and wore a black skullcap.
Perhaps no one in all Gilead, or indeed wherever the message of the angels might reach in the hearts of men that night, had grasped the inner meaning of their song as the old Dean.