In time the trunk and every branch and twig are incased in hard pure ice; so that the tree looks like a skeleton tree made all of glass--glass that is crystal-clear.

All along the underside of every branch and twig is a comb of little icicles--the frozen drip.
Sometimes these pendants do not quite amount to icicles, but are round beads--frozen tears.
The weather clears, toward dawn, and leaves a brisk pure atmosphere and a sky without a shred of cloud in it--and everything is still, there is not a breath of wind.

The dawn breaks and spreads, the news of the storm goes about the house, and the little and the big, in wraps and blankets, flock to the window and press together there, and gaze intently out upon the great white ghost in the grounds, and nobody says a word, nobody stirs.

All are waiting; they know what is coming, and they are waiting waiting for the miracle.

The minutes drift on and on and on, with not a sound but the ticking of the clock; at last the sun fires a sudden sheaf of rays into the ghostly tree and turns it into a white splendor of glittering diamonds.