A Christmas Tree for Eileen T HE Christmas trees grow in

a little copse on a farm in Kildare. They look across the fields towards the gleam of the slow running Barrow. Beyond the river rise the gentle hills of Leix, which was Queen's County not so long ago. Since Hans Andersen gave soul to a little Christmas tree one cannot but think of them all as creatures of feeling and personality. Indeed I have never stripped my Christmas tree without a mingling of regret and apology. This summer I was glad because I could pick one out from a sort of Limbo at the bottom of the garden and use it as a support for nasturtiums. Surely nasturtiums in their bravery of flame colour are a good exchange for candles and tinsel balls. And yet-- I do not know—it is a supreme moment for any tree when the taper lights up every candle and the effulgence holds the children and the grown-ups breathless for a moment. To some of the elders it is a moment perilously near tears, one can hardly' say why—perhaps because its loveliness is so fleeting.

But to go back to the quiet of Kildare, a dreamy county except when hounds are running and red coats flash among the greens and browns of the winter scene ; the little tree knows scant society, but the rabbits and the birds and the farm collies. Sometimes the long-tailed • tits may tumble among its branches or a heron flap bow-like wings above the wood, but for the rest sunlight and moonlight and wind and rain are all it knows of life. On a day, fine I hope, we shall drive the fortY-three miles from Dublin down to the farm. The tree will be marked out and will fall' with 'a crash. " It and two others will be tied with binding cord and put into the back of the -car with a bundle of evergreens for decoration, and so it will come to town. .

And what about Eileen whom I hive hitherto named ".the Bold " ? It is my joy to observe that Eileen is not now uniquely bold in' a family whose good behaviour seems superhuman. Patricia, who follows on .Eileen's heels, is quite as bold. Patricia, not yet mistress of speech, gives vent to piercing yells when she is dragged from the wheel of the car where she sits in proud fancy driving the roads. Patricia's boldness will, I trust, somewhat obscure Eileen's, which, after all, the nuns have contrived to curb in no small measure in this first year of school life. Eileen is' of a' pious habit. She lives in that lovely world where the doors of. Heaven stand open, and a little girl may run in and out as she likes.. Angels and saints are as real to Eileen as the people going down the lane behind the Garage. Santa Claus is an audible, visible reality to her. If she stays awake she will see him come down the chimney, she knows it.. And when, with sack on back, he thunders at the door and tramps upstairs to our town drawing-room her eyes grow wide with wonder and her hair seems to curl more ecstatically as it gleams in the light of Christmas candles.

For Eileen's sake, if for. no other, the labour of a Christmas tree is worth while. One sees that Heaven's gates open as the Christmas tree shines with candles and sparklets. If anyone has not put sparklets on a Christmas tree let him do so this year. They are a safe and .para- disiacal form of firework. You get packets of them, a dozen for tuppence or three-halfpence. The trouble is that they are only found in small shops, or so it is in Dublin. After trying every toyshop I fell back on a small newsvendor, the far side of Baggot Street Bridge, and found them. To country children in Wexford they came, I heard, as a revelation on the Christmas tree.

So, while Christmas becomes more and more of a strain financially and physically to us elders I take heart in thinking that its glory will still be magical to Eileen. ,Children are wonderfully loyal to the spirit of Christmas. They will keep its secrets, when they have guessed them, inviolate for the younger ones.

" Of course I know," said a little girl to me, " that Santa Claus is really Daddy, but I won't tell Dermot, for he believes."

I am confident that Peter and Maggie will never say to Eileen " But Santa Claus is only Mr. V."

Eileen is five now, and I do not know if the magic glasses will really survive this Christmas or if doubt will occur to her. As I told you, she is still on the threshold of Heaven where even bold little girls may play.

" I said a 'Hail Mary ' for your kitten when she was sick," Eileen told me, and I grieved that the beloved kitten had faded out of life in spite of her.

" I say the Rosary for Mr. V. at night," she announces, while her brethren dispute the fact loudly, " As though she could ! " says Peter.

Eileen, hopping about the garden at my heels; gave me tidings of guardian angels.

" You know," she said, " you've got one by your bed all the time. But you don't see them till you're going to die. If you sees one you'll die." Eileen looked remarkably alive at the moment, so I gathered that .her angelic guard was invisible. I often- think that he hai a busy time with Eileen. What did he say when she escaped from Maggie and went wandering through Dublin after school ? But she is a known character. That wonderful mop of shaded curls is something that marks her. All the taxi-drivers and all the flower-women in Stephen's Green know her and between them and her guardian angel. She Was' soon brought home, Many of us eat too much, especially at the overfed festival of Christmas, but few of us are as frank as Eileen about it., Quite frequently a pale and woebegone child appears instead of that sparkling creature I know so well.

" What ! Sick, Eileen ? What's wrong with you " " I overeat myself," this with utter frankness.

" Now was it worth while, Eileen ? What did you have " "Pancakes and chocolate. Maggie made us pancakes and me Daddy gave me pennies for sweets."

" Why ! you were sick last week too " " But you made me better. When you put that little thing under me arm I got well, I did."

Ah ! touching faith in a clinical thermometer. There is a sop for the auto-suggestion people. Now Eileen has gone to stay with a relation she calls her " God-Auntie," a combination I feel sure of aunt and godmother. But I hope she will be back in time to make the Christmas tree magical and to give Santa Claus the tribute of