“This evening!” they all said. “How it will shine this evening!” “Oh!” thought the Tree. “If the evening were but come! If the tapers were but lighted! And then I wonder what will happen! Perhaps the other trees from the forest will come to look at me! Perhaps the sparrows will beat against the windowpanes! I wonder if I shall take root here, and winter and summer stand covered with ornaments!” He knew very much about the matter — but he was so impatient that for sheer longing he got a pain in his back, and this with trees is the same thing as a headache with us. The candles were now lighted — what brightness! What splendor! The Tree trembled so in every bough that one of the tapers set fire to the foliage. It blazed up famously. “Help! Help!” cried the young ladies, and they quickly put out the fire.