e had been the owner of what
is called a "dry-goods store," which seems to mean a shop where things
are sold which are not good to eat or drink--such as drapery. At last
somebody said, that as there was a public-house called the "Duke of
Wellington" at the corner of the street, there probably had been a nearer
one called "The Nelson," which had been burnt down, and that the man who
built "The Nelson" had built the house with the spruce fir before it,
and that so the name had arisen. An explanation which was just so far
probable, that public-houses and fires were of frequent occurrence in
those parts.

But this has nothing to do with the story. Only we must say, as we said
before, and as we should have said had we been living there then, the
child we speak of lived in the little white house with one spruce fir
just in front of it.

Of all the children who looked forward to the Christmas tree, he looked
forward to it the most intensely. He was an imaginative child, of a
simple, happy nature, easy to please. His father was an Englishman, and
in the long winter evenings he would tell the child tales of the old
country, to which his mother would listen also. Perhaps the parents
enjoyed these stories the most. To the boy they were new, and
consequently delightful, but to the parents they were old; and as
regards some stories, that is better still.

"What kind of a bird is this on my letter?" asked the boy on the day
which brought the Governor's lady's note of invitation. "And oh! what
is a Christmas tree?"

"The bird is an English robin," said his father. "It is quite another
bird to that which is called a robin here: it is smaller and rounder,
and has a redder breast and bright dark eyes, and lives and sings at
home through the winter. A Christmas tree is a fir-tree--just such a
one as that outside the door--brought into the house and covered with
lights and presents. Picture to yourself our fir-tree lighted up with
tapers on all the branches, with dolls, and trumpets, and bon-bons, and
drums, and toys of all kinds hanging from it like fir-cones, and on the
tip-top shoot a figure of a Christmas Angel in white, with a star upon
its head."

"Fancy!" said the boy.

And fancy he did. Every day he looked at the spruce fir, and tried to
imagine it laden with presents, and brilliant with tapers, and thought
how wonderful must be that "old country"--_Home_, as it was called, even
by those who had never seen it--where the rob