"Stop, I will smooth it in a moment," exclaimed Emmeline, eagerly; "it is Sunday, Percy, she shall look well."
"You had better let me do it, Emmy," said her mother, smiling; "your cousin's head can only bear very tender handling to-night. There, that will do--and I am quite ready to attend you."
The lights, the joyous voices, even her uncle's kind greeting, almost overpowered poor Ellen; as Percy, still preserving his character of an admirable nurse, laid her carefully on a couch in the sitting-room, where not only tea was waiting, but the celebrated family tree, which Mrs. Hamilton's anxiety and Ellen's sorrow had caused them both to forget, was displayed with even more than usual taste and beauty.
Mr. Hamilton, when young, had been a great deal with his father in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, and brought from the first and latter country certain domestic observances which had especially pleased him, as so greatly enhancing the enjoyments of home, and helping to a right understanding between parents and children, by increasing their mutual love and confidence. The family tree, or Christmas Tree, as it was called, was one of these, and from their earliest years it had been one of the children's greatest delights on New Year's Eve. Of course, as they grew older, and their taste improved, the tree itself, its suspended presents, and its surrounding decorations increased in beauty, and it had never been prettier than it was this year. The whole of the preceding afternoon had the young artists labored in preparing it, for of course, as the next day was Sunday, it was obliged to be all finished by the Saturday night; the servants, eager in all things to enhance the happiness of those whose parents made them so happy, did not care what trouble they took to help them. They always selected the room in which there was a very lofty and very deep oriel window, in the center of which recess (which was almost as large as a moderately sized room) they placed _the_ tree, which was a very large, gracefully-cut spruce fir; it was placed in a tub filled with the same soil as that in which the tree grew, so that by watering and care it remained fresh for some time. The tub which contained it, was completely hidden by the flowering shrubs that were placed round it, rising in an expanding pyramid, by means of several flower-stands, till the recess seemed one mass of leaf and flower; among which the superb scarlet geranium, that in Devonshire grows so luxuriantly all through the winter, shining against its own beautiful leaf, the brilliant berries of the holly, with their dark glistening branches, the snow-berry and flowering myrtle, shone pre-eminent. Small lamps glittered through the flowers, and were suspended in sufficient profusion from the pendent branches of the tree to half reveal and half hide the various gifts and treasures that were there deposited; and altogether the effect, from every part of the room, was really striking.