"
Never having fastened an angel to the top of a tree, for a half-moment
Van Landing was uncertain how to go about it, fearing exposure of
ignorance and awkwardness; then with a quick movement he was up the
ladder and looking down at the girl who was handing him a huge paper
doll dressed in the garments supposedly worn by the dwellers of
mansions in the sky, and as he took it he laughed.
"This is a very worldly-looking angel. She apparently enjoys the
blowing of her trumpet. Stand off, will you, and see if that's right?"
Van Landing fastened the doll firmly to the top of the tree. "Does she
show well down there?"
It was perfectly natural that he should be here and helping. True, he
had never heard of Mother McNeil and her home until two nights before,
never had dressed a Christmas tree before, or before gone where he was
not asked, but things of that sort no longer mattered. What mattered
was that he had found Frances, that it was the Christmas season, and
he was at last learning the secret of its hold on human hearts and
sympathies. There was no time to talk, but as he looked he watched,
with eyes that missed no movement that she made, the fine, fair face
that to him was like no other on earth, and, watching, he wondered if
she, too, wondered at the naturalness of it all.
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