And she is going to smile at you, because you are all going to be good
children and try to study and learn all that dear Mr. Henderson teaches
you; and you are going to obey every single thing that dear Mrs.
Henderson tells you, just as soon as she speaks," said Phronsie slowly,
and turning her head to look at the different rows.

"I hope we'll be forgiven for sitting here and listening to old lady
Chatterton's praises," whispered Mrs. Hamilton Dyce to her husband. "It
makes me feel dreadfully wicked to swallow it all without a protest."

"Oh, we've swallowed that annually for three years now," said Mr. Dyce
with a little laugh, "and grown callous. Your face is just as bad as it
was the first time Phronsie eulogized her."

"I can't help it," declared his wife, "when I think of that dreadful
old"--

"Oh, come," remonstrated her husband, "let's bury the past; Phronsie
has."

"Phronsie!" ejaculated Mrs. Dyce. "Oh, that blessed child! Just hear her
now."

"So on this Christmas Day," Phronsie was saying in clear tones, "you are
to remember that you wouldn't have had this Tree but for the beautiful
Lady; and on every single other day, you must remember that you wouldn't
ever have had this Home; not a bit of any of it"--here she turned and
looked around the picture-hung walls, and out of the long windows to the
dark pines and firs of the broad lawn, tossing their snow-laden
branches, "but for the beautiful lady. And you must every one of you