It was their high and equal comradeship. Wherever his mind
could go hers went--a brilliant torch, a warming sympathy.
But to-night his words had fallen on her as withered leaves on a
motionless figure of stone. If he was sensible of this change in her,
he gave no sign. And after a moment he passed to the remaining part of
the story.
"Thus far I have been speaking to you of the bare tree in wild nature:
here it is loaded with decorations; and now I want to show you that
they too are Forest Memories--that since the evergreen moved over into
the service of Christianity, one by one like a flock of birds these
Forest Memories have followed it and have alighted amid its
branches. Everything here has its story. I am going to tell you in
each case what that story is; I am going to interpret everything on
the Christmas Tree and the other Christmas decorations in the room."
It was at this point that her keen attention became fixed on him and
never afterwards wavered. If everything had its story, the mistletoe
would have its; he must interpret that: and thus he himself
unexpectedly had brought about the situation she wished. She would
meet him at that symbolic bough: there be rendered the Judgment of the
Years! And now as one sits down at some point of a road where a
traveller must arrive, she waited for him there.
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