take about all the morning to trim the two rooms and two trees."




CHAPTER V.


Grandma Elsie's college boys, Harold and Herbert Travilla, had come home
for the holidays, arriving the latter part of the previous week. This
morning they had come over to Woodburn, very soon after breakfast, "to
have a chat with Vi while they could catch her alone," they said, "for
with all the company that was to be entertained at Ion they might not
have so good a chance again."

They stood with her at the window watching the carriage as it drove away
with the captain and his children. It had hardly reached the gate
leading into the high road when Harold turned to his sister with the
remark,

"Well, Vi, we've had quite a satisfactory talk; and now for action. As I
overheard the captain say to the children, 'there's no time to lose.'"

"No; we will begin at once," returned Violet, leading the way to the
large room where the Christmas tree had been set up last year.

A couple of negro men were carrying in its counterpart at one door, as
Violet and her brother entered at the other.

"Ah that's a fine tree, Jack!" she said addressing one of them; "the