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will,
    We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
    FROM
W ELCOME TO THE B REUL H OUSE !—A N I NFORMAL
T OUR
, BY M RS . H AMILTON J OHNSTONE III, S ENIOR
D OCENT . (C OPYRIGHT 1956 )

II
    Friday, December 11
    T HANKS TO THE SUSSEX SQUARE PRESERVATION Society, which had successfully fought to retain them, six of the city’s last original gas streetlights survived in working
     order, and here in the early December twilight their soft flickers gleamed upon polished brass door handles and kick plates.
    A through street for cars and taxis passed along the bottom of the square, but when vehicular traffic was banned from the
     northern three sides around the small park, the original cobblestone carriageway was repaved in smooth brick, a substitution
     Mrs. Beardsley regretted anew as she stood in the doorway of number 7 and watched the last visitors descend the broad marble
     steps.
    Mrs. Beardsley lived diagonally across the park at number 35. As senior docent, however, she spent almost as much time at
     the Breul House as she did in her own. She had hoped for the seat on the board of trustees that had recently gone-to Dr. Shambley,
     but until that prize dropped into her lap, she would continue to conduct tours of the house, arrange seasonal decorations,
     and intimidate the reduced staff.
    Mrs. Beardsley’s officiousness might weary Benjamin Peake—especially when he was called upon to calm the ruffled waters she
     left in her wake—but the director revenged himself with the secret knowledge that the woman would never become a trustee as
     long as he had a say in the matter. Otherwise, he had no intention of discouraging her interest in the place. After all, she
     deferred to his position, she was capable of surprisingly shrewd promotional ideas, and she worked tirelessly without a salary,
     of itself no small consideration, given the Erich Breul House’s current financial difficulties.
    Although a discreet sign inside the vestibule suggested donations of three dollars per person to view the house and its contents,
     at least a third of those who came either donated less or brazenly ignored the sign altogether. This wouldn’t have mattered
     if hundreds daily thronged the house. Sadly, the two who had just departed were the forty-first and forty-second of the day.
    An average day these days.
    Mrs. Beardsley sighed and lingered for a moment in the chill twilight. She considered herself a closet romantic and the square
     was at its wintertime loveliest tonight. The very sight of it restored her good spirits because she could, she thought, take
     credit for its beauty—not only for the gaslights but even for the tiny colored lights that twinkled upon a tall evergreen
     at the center of the square’s handkerchief-size park.
    The tree represented compromise. Every year the question of decorative Christmas lights came before the Sussex Square Preservation
     Society and every year Mrs. Beardsley had managed to block their use. This year a younger, more vulgar contingent from numbers
     9, 14, and 31 had rammed the motion through. Mrs. Beardsley had then rallied her forces and carried a vote that limited the
     lights to a single tree.
    With predictable incompetence, the arrivistes had under-estimated how many strings it would take to bedizen every twig, so
     the evergreen emerged more tasteful than Mrs. Beardsley had dared hope. In fact, it was even rather festive but Mrs. Beardsley
     had no intention of admitting that to a soul. Give them an inch and they’d string every bush next year.
    One electrified tree was anachronism enough.
    An icy gust of wind made the tall spruce dip and sway and Mrs. Beardsley shivered with a sudden chill that had nothing to
     do with the plummeting temperature.
    “Somebody just walked over my grave,” she thought and hurried inside.
    Footsteps sounded on the marble stoop behind her and she held the tall door open a crack.
    “I’m sorry but we’re just closing and—oh! Mr. Munson. I didn’t