the
signal-horns over on the mountain.

Morning came at last and Mr. Munroe with it. No success so far. He drank
some coffee and was off again. That was quite early. An hour or two
later the breakfast-bell rang. Earl did not respond to it, so his mother
went to the foot of the stairs and called him. There was a stern ring in
her soft voice. All the time she had in mind his heartlessness and
greediness over the presents. When Earl did not answer she went
up-stairs, and found that he was not in his room. Then she looked in the
parlor, and stood staring in bewilderment. Earl was not there, but
neither were the Christmas-tree and his presents--they had vanished
bodily!

Just at that moment Earl Munroe was hurrying down the road, and he was
dragging his big sled, on which were loaded his Christmas-presents and
the Christmas-tree. The top of the tree trailed in the snow, its
branches spread over the sled on either side, and rustled. It was a
heavy load, but Earl tugged manfully in an enthusiasm of remorse and
atonement--a fantastic, extravagant atonement, planned by that same
fertile fancy which had invented that story for poor little Jenny, but
instigated by all the good, repentant impulses in the boy's nature.

On every one of those neat parcels, above his own name, was written in
his big crooked, childish hand, "Jenny Brown, from--" Earl Munroe had
not saved one Christmas-present for himself.

Pulling along, his eyes brilliant, his cheeks glowing, he met Maud
Barker. She was Judge Barker's daughter, and the girl who had joined him
in advising Jenny to hunt on the mountain for the Christmas-tree.

Maud stepped along, placing her trim little feet with dainty precision;
she wore some new high-buttoned overshoes. She also carried a new beaver
muff, but in one hand only. The other dangled mittenless at her side; it
was pink with cold, but on its third finger sparkled a new gold ring
with a blue stone in it.

"Oh, Earl!" she called out, "have they found Jenny Brown? I was going up
to your house to--Why, Earl Munroe, what have you got there?"

"I'm carrying up my Christmas-presents and the tree up to Jenny's--so
she'll find 'em when she comes back," said the boy, flushing red. There
was a little defiant choke in his voice.

"Why, what for?"

"I rather think they belong to her more'n they do to me, after what's
happened."

"Does your mother know?"

"No; she wouldn't care. She'd think I was only doing what I ought."