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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Christmas Angel, by Abbie Farwell Brown
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Christmas Angel
+
+Author: Abbie Farwell Brown
+
+Release Date: April 25, 2005 [EBook #15709]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Elaine Walker and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+By Abbie Farwell Brown
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL. Illustrated. Square 12mo, 60 cents, _net_.
+Postage extra.
+
+JOHN OF THE WOODS. Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.25.
+
+FRESH POSIES. Illustrated. Square 8vo, $1.50.
+
+FRIENDS AND COUSINS. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00.
+
+BROTHERS AND SISTERS. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00.
+
+THE STAR JEWELS AND OTHER WONDERS. Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.00.
+
+THE FLOWER PRINCESS. Illustrated. Sq. 12mo, $1.00.
+
+THE CURIOUS BOOK OF BIRDS. Illustrated. Square 12mo, $1.10, _net_.
+Postpaid, $1.21.
+
+A POCKETFUL OF POSIES. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00, _net_. Postpaid, $1.09.
+
+IN THE DAYS OF GIANTS. Illustrated, 12mo, $1.10, _net_. Postpaid, $1.21.
+_School edition_, 50 cents, _net_, postpaid.
+
+THE BOOK OF SAINTS AND FRIENDLY BEASTS. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.25.
+_School Edition_, 50 cents, _net_, postpaid.
+
+THE LONESOMEST DOLL. Illustrated. Sq. 12mo, 85 cents, _net_.
+Postpaid, 95 cents.
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
+
+[Illustration: YOU HANG IT ON THE TREE, ANGELINA (page 26)]
+
+THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
+
+BY
+
+ABBIE FARWELL BROWN
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+REGINALD BIRCH
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+
+The Riverside Press Cambridge
+
+_Published October 1910_
+
+SECOND IMPRESSION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+   I. THE PLAY BOX                                               1
+
+  II. JACK-IN-THE-BOX                                            8
+
+ III. THE FLANTON DOG                                           12
+
+  IV. NOAH'S ARK                                                15
+
+   V. MIRANDA                                                   20
+
+  VI. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL                                       25
+
+ VII. BEFORE THE FIRE                                           32
+
+VIII. JACK AGAIN                                                37
+
+  IX. THE DOG AGAIN                                             44
+
+   X. NOAH AGAIN                                                49
+
+  XI. MIRANDA AGAIN                                             53
+
+ XII. THE ANGEL AGAIN                                           62
+
+XIII. THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE                                      68
+
+ XIV. TOM                                                       73
+
+  XV. CHRISTMAS DAY                                             76
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+YOU HANG IT ON THE TREE, ANGELINA (page 26)         _Frontispiece_
+
+SHE LOOKED UP AND DOWN THE STREET                               22
+
+_PING!_ OUT SPRANG THE JACK-IN-THE-BOX                          42
+
+BOB COOPER SAVES THE BABY                                       46
+
+HE GRASPED A RAILING TO STEADY HIMSELF                          64
+
+MARY RETURNS THE DOLL                                           78
+
+_From drawings by Reginald Birch_
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PLAY BOX
+
+
+At the sound of footsteps along the hall Miss Terry looked up from the
+letter which she was reading for the sixth time. "Of course I would not see
+him," she said, pursing her lips into a hard line. "Certainly not!"
+
+A bump on the library door, as from an opposing knee, did duty for a knock.
+
+"Bring the box in here, Norah," said Miss Terry, holding open the door for
+her servant, who was gasping under the weight of a packing-case. "Set it
+down on the rug by the fire-place. I am going to look it over and burn up
+the rubbish this evening."
+
+She glanced once more at the letter in her hand, then with a sniff tossed
+it upon the fire.
+
+"Yes'm," said Norah, as she set down the box with a thump. She stooped once
+more to pick up something which had fallen out when the cover was jarred
+open. It was a pink papier-mâché angel, such as are often hung from the top
+of Christmas trees as a crowning symbol. Norah stood holding it between
+thumb and finger, staring amazedly. Who would think to find such a bit of
+frivolity in the house of Miss Terry!
+
+Her mistress looked up from the fire, where the bit of writing was writhing
+painfully, and caught the expression of Norah's face.
+
+"What have you there?" she asked, frowning, as she took the object into her
+own hands. "The Christmas Angel!" she exclaimed under her breath. "I had
+quite forgotten it." Then as if it burned her fingers she thrust the little
+image back into the box and turned to Norah brusquely. "There, that's all.
+You can go now, Norah," she said.
+
+"Yes'm," answered the maid. She hesitated. "If you please'm, it's Christmas
+Eve."
+
+"Well, I believe so," snapped Miss Terry, who seemed to be in a
+particularly bad humor this evening. "What do you want?"
+
+Norah flushed; but she was hardened to her mistress's manner. "Only to ask
+if I may go out for a little while to see the decorations and hear the
+singing."
+
+"Decorations? Singing? Fiddlestick!" retorted Miss Terry, poker in hand.
+"What decorations? What singing?"
+
+"Why, all the windows along the street are full of candles," answered
+Norah; "rows of candles in every house, to light the Christ Child on his
+way when he comes through the city to-night."
+
+"Fiddlestick!" again snarled her mistress.
+
+"And choir-boys are going about the streets, they say, singing carols in
+front of the lighted houses," continued Norah enthusiastically. "It must
+sound so pretty!"
+
+"They had much better be at home in bed. I believe people are losing their
+minds!"
+
+"Please'm, may I go?" asked Norah again.
+
+Norah had no puritanic traditions to her account. Moreover she was young
+and warm and enthusiastic. Sometimes the spell of Miss Terry's sombre house
+threatened her to the point of desperation. It was so this Christmas Eve;
+but she made her request with apparent calmness.
+
+"Yes, go along," assented her mistress ungraciously.
+
+"Thank you, 'm," said the servant demurely, but with a brightening of her
+blue eyes. And presently the area door banged behind her quick-retreating
+footsteps.
+
+"H'm! Didn't take her long to get ready!" muttered Miss Terry, giving the
+fire a vicious poke. She was alone in the house, on Christmas Eve, and not
+a man, woman, or child in the world cared. Well, it was what she wanted. It
+was of her own doing. If she had wished--
+
+She sat back in her chair, with thin, long hands lying along the arms of
+it, gazing into the fire. A bit of paper there was crumbling into ashes.
+Alone on Christmas Eve! Even Norah had some relation with the world
+outside. Was there not a stalwart officer waiting for her on the nearest
+corner? Even Norah could feel a simple childish pleasure in candles and
+carols and merriment, and the old, old superstition.
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" mused Miss Terry scornfully. "What is our Christmas,
+anyway? A time for shopkeepers to sell and for foolish folks to kill
+themselves in buying. Christmas spirit? No! It is all humbug,--all
+selfishness, and worry; an unwholesome season of unnatural activities. I am
+glad I am out of it. I am glad no one expects anything of me,--nor I of any
+one. I am quite independent; blessedly independent of the whole foolish
+business. It is a good time to begin clearing up for the new year. I'm glad
+I thought of it. I've long threatened to get rid of the stuff that has
+been accumulating in that corner of the attic. Now I will begin."
+
+She tugged the packing-case an inch nearer the fire. It was like Miss Terry
+to insist upon that nearer inch. Then she raised the cover. It was a box
+full of children's battered toys, old-fashioned and quaint; the toys in
+vogue thirty--forty--fifty years earlier, when Miss Terry was a child. She
+gave a reminiscent sniff as she threw up the cover and saw on the under
+side of it a big label of pasteboard unevenly lettered.
+
+[Illustration: PLAY BOX OF TOM TERRY AND ANGELINA TERRY (scrawl)]
+
+"Humph!" she snorted. There was a great deal in that "humph." It meant:
+Yes, Tom's name had plenty of room, while poor little Angelina had to
+squeeze in as well as she could. How like Tom! This accounted for
+everything, even to his not being in his sister's house this very night.
+How unreasonable he had been!
+
+Miss Terry shrugged impatiently. Why think of Tom to-night? Years ago he
+had deliberately cut himself adrift from her interests. No need to think of
+him now. It was too late to appease her. But here were all these toys to be
+got rid of. The fire was hungry for them. Why not begin?
+
+Miss Terry stooped to poke over the contents of the box with lean, long
+fingers. In one corner thrust up a doll's arm; in another, an animal's tail
+pointed heavenward. She caught glimpses of glitter and tinsel, wheels and
+fragments of unidentifiable toys.
+
+"What rubbish!" she said. "Yes, I'll burn them all. They are good for
+nothing else. I suppose some folks would try to give them away, and bore a
+lot of people to death. They seem to think they are saving something, that
+way. Nonsense! I know better. It is all foolishness, this craze for giving.
+Most things are better destroyed as soon as you are done with them. Why,
+nobody wants such truck as this. Now, could any child ever have cared for
+so silly a thing?" She pulled out a faded jumping-jack, and regarded it
+scornfully. "Idiotic! Such toys are demoralizing for children--weaken their
+minds. It is a shame to think how every one seems bound to spoil children,
+especially at Christmas time. Well, no one can say that I have added to the
+shameful waste."
+
+Miss Terry tossed the poor jumping-jack on the fire, and eyed his last
+contortions with grim satisfaction.
+
+But as she watched, a quaint idea came to her. She was famous for eccentric
+ideas.
+
+"I will try an experiment," she said. "I will prove once for all my point
+about the 'Christmas spirit.' I will drop some of these old toys out on the
+sidewalk and see what happens. It may be interesting."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+JACK-IN-THE-BOX
+
+
+Miss Terry rose and crossed two rooms to the front window, looking out upon
+the street. A flare of light almost blinded her eyes. Every window opposite
+her along the block, as far as she could see, was illuminated with a row of
+lighted candles across the sash. The soft, unusual glow threw into relief
+the pretty curtains and wreaths of green, and gave glimpses of cosy
+interiors and flitting happy figures.
+
+"What a waste of candles!" scolded Miss Terry. "Folks are growing terribly
+extravagant."
+
+The street was white with snow which had fallen a few hours earlier, piled
+in drifts along the curb of the little-traveled terrace. But the sidewalks
+were neatly shoveled and swept clean, as became the eminently respectable
+part of the city where Miss Terry lived. A long flight of steps, with iron
+railing at the side, led down from the front door, upon which a silver
+plate had for generations in decorous flourishes announced the name of
+Terry.
+
+Miss Terry returned to the play box and drew out between thumb and finger
+the topmost toy. It happened to be a wooden box, with a wire hasp for
+fastening the cover. Half unconsciously she pressed the spring, and a
+hideous Jack-in-the-box sprang out to confront her with a squeak, a leering
+smile, and a red nose. Miss Terry eyed him with disfavor.
+
+"I always did hate that thing," she said. "Tom was continually frightening
+me with it, I remember." As if to be rid of unwelcome memories she shut her
+mouth tight, even as she shut Jack back into his box, snapping the spring
+into place. "This will do to begin with," she thought. She crossed to the
+window, which she opened quickly, and tossed out the box, so that it fell
+squarely in the middle of the sidewalk. Then closing the window and turning
+down the lights in the room behind her, Miss Terry hid in the folds of the
+curtain and watched to see what would happen to Jack.
+
+The street was quiet. Few persons passed on either side. At last she spied
+two little ragamuffins approaching. They seemed to be Jewish lads of the
+newsboy class, and they eyed the display of candles appraisingly. The
+smaller boy first caught sight of the box in the middle of the sidewalk.
+
+"Hello! Wot's dis?" he grunted, making a dash upon it.
+
+"Gee! Wot's up?" responded the other, who was instantly at his elbow.
+
+"Gwan! Lemme look at it."
+
+The smaller boy drew away and pressed the spring of the box eagerly.
+_Ping!_ Out popped the Jack into his astonished face; whereupon he set up a
+guffaw.
+
+"Give it here!" commanded the bigger boy.
+
+"Naw! You let it alone! It's mine!" asserted the other, edging away along
+the curbstone. "I saw it first. You can't have it."
+
+"Give it here. I saw it first myself. Hand it over, or I'll smash you!"
+
+The bigger boy advanced threateningly.
+
+"I won't!" the other whimpered, clasping the box tightly under his jacket.
+
+He started to run, but the bigger fellow was too quick for him. He pounced
+across the sidewalk, and soon the twain were struggling in the snowdrift,
+pummeling one another with might and main.
+
+"I told you so!" commented Miss Terry from behind the curtain. "Here's the
+first show of the beautiful Christmas spirit that is supposed to be abroad.
+Look at the little beasts fighting over something that neither of them
+really wants!"
+
+Just then Miss Terry spied a blue-coated figure leisurely approaching. At
+the same moment an instinct seemed to warn the struggling urchins.
+
+"Cop!" said a muffled voice from the pile of arms and legs, and in an
+instant two black shadows were flitting down the street; but not before the
+bigger boy had wrenched the box from the pocket of the little chap.
+
+"So that is the end of experiment number one," quoth Miss Terry, smiling
+grimly. "It happened just about as I expected. They will be fighting again
+as soon as they are out of sight. They are Jews; but that doesn't make any
+difference about the Christmas spirit. Now let's see what becomes of the
+next experiment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FLANTON DOG
+
+
+She returned to the play box by the fire, and rummaged for a few minutes
+among the tangled toys. Then with something like a chuckle she drew out a
+soft, pale creature with four wobbly legs.
+
+"The Flanton Dog!" she said. "Well, I vow! I had forgotten all about him.
+It was Tom who coined the name for him because he was made of Canton
+flannel."
+
+She stood the thing up on the table as well as his weak legs would allow,
+and inspected him critically. He certainly was a forlorn specimen. One of
+the black beads which had served him for eyes was gone. His ears, which had
+originally stood up saucily on his head, now drooped in limp dejection. One
+of them was a mere shapeless rag hanging by a thread. He was dirty and
+discolored, and his tail was gone. But still he smiled with his red-thread
+mouth and seemed trying to make the best of things.
+
+"What a nightmare!" said Miss Terry contemptuously. "I know there isn't a
+child in the city who wants such a looking thing. Why, even the Animal
+Rescue folks would give the boys a 'free shot' at that. This isn't going to
+bring out any Christmas spirit," she sneered. "I will try it and see."
+
+Once more she lifted the window and tossed the dog to the sidewalk. He
+rolled upon his back and lay pathetically with crooked legs yearning
+upward, still smiling. Hardly had Miss Terry time to conceal herself behind
+the curtain when she saw a figure approaching, airily waving a stick.
+
+"No ragamuffin this time," she said. "Hello! It is that good-for-nothing
+young Cooper fellow from the next block. They say he is a millionaire.
+Well, he isn't even going to see the Flanton Dog."
+
+The young man came swinging along, debonairly; he was whistling under his
+breath. He was a dapper figure in a long coat and a silk hat, under which
+the candles lighted a rather silly face. When he reached the spot in the
+sidewalk where the Flanton Dog lay, he paused a moment looking down. Then
+he poked the object with his stick. On the other side of the street a
+mother and her little boy were passing at the time. The child's eyes caught
+sight of the dog on the sidewalk, and he hung back, watching to see what
+the young man would do to it. But his mother drew him after her. Just then
+an automobile came panting through the snow. With a quick movement Cooper
+picked up the dog on the end of his stick and tossed it into the street,
+under the wheels of the machine. The baby across the street uttered a howl
+of anguish at the sight. Miss Terry herself was surprised to feel a pang
+shoot through her as the car passed over the queer old toy. She retreated
+from the window quickly.
+
+"Well, that's the end of Flanton," she said with half a sigh. "I knew that
+fellow was a brute. I might have expected something like that. But it
+looked so--so--" She hesitated for a word, and did not finish her sentence,
+but bit her lip and sniffed cynically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE NOAH'S ARK
+
+
+"Now, what comes next?" Miss Terry rummaged in the box until her fingers
+met something odd-shaped, long, and smooth-sided. With some difficulty she
+drew out the object, for it was of good size.
+
+"H'm! The old Noah's ark," she said. "I wonder if all the animals are in
+there."
+
+She lifted the cover, and turned out into her lap the long-imprisoned
+animals and their round-bodied chief. Mrs. Noah and her sons had long since
+disappeared. But the ark-builder, hatless and one-armed, still presided
+over a menagerie of sorry beasts. Scarcely one could boast of being a
+quadruped. To few of them the years had spared a tail. From their close
+resemblance in their misery, it was not hard to believe in the kinship of
+all animal life. She took them up and examined them curiously one by one.
+Finally she selected a shapeless slate-colored block from the mass. "This
+was the elephant," she mused. "I remember when Tom stepped on him and
+smashed his trunk. 'I guess I'm going to be an expressman when I grow up,'
+he said, looking sorry. Tom was always full of his jokes. Now I'll try this
+and see what happens to the ark on its last voyage."
+
+Just then there was a noise outside. An automobile honked past, and Miss
+Terry shuddered, recalling the pathetic end of the Flanton Dog, which had
+given her quite a turn.
+
+"I hate those horrid machines!" she exclaimed. "They seem like Juggernaut.
+I'd like to forbid their going through this street."
+
+She crowded the elephant with Noah and the rest of his charge back into the
+ark and closed the lid. "I can't throw this out of the window," she
+reflected. "They would spill. I must take it out on the sidewalk. Land! The
+fire's going out! That girl doesn't know how to build fires so they will
+keep."
+
+She laid the Noah's ark on the table, and going to the closet tugged out
+several big logs, which she arranged geometrically. About laying fires, as
+about most other things, Miss Terry had her own positive theories. Taking
+the bellows in hand she blew furiously, and was presently rewarded with a
+brisk blaze. She smiled with satisfaction, and trotted upstairs to find her
+red knit shawl. With this about her shoulders she was prepared to brave the
+December frost. Down the steps she went, and deposited the ark discreetly
+at their foot; then returned to take up her position behind the curtains.
+
+There were a good many people passing, but they seemed too preoccupied to
+glance down at the sidewalk. They were nearly all hurrying in one
+direction. Some were running in the middle of the street.
+
+"They are in a great hurry," sniffed Miss Terry disdainfully. "One would
+think they had something really important on hand. I suppose they are going
+to hear the singing. Fiddlestick!"
+
+A man hastened by under the window; a woman; two children, a boy and a
+girl, running and gesticulating eagerly. None of them noticed the Noah's
+ark lying at the foot of the steps.
+
+Miss Terry began to grow impatient. "Are they all blind?" she fretted.
+"What is the matter with them? I wish somebody would find the thing. I am
+tired of seeing it lying there."
+
+She tapped the floor impatiently with her slipper. Just then a woman
+approached. She was dressed in the most uncompromising of mourning, and she
+walked slowly, with bent head, never glancing at the lighted windows on
+either side.
+
+"She will see it," commented Miss Terry. And sure enough, she did. She
+stopped at the doorstep, drew her skirts aside, and bent over to look at
+the strange-shaped box at her feet. Finally she lifted it But immediately
+she shivered and acted so strangely that Miss Terry thought she was about
+to break the toy in pieces on the steps or throw it into the street.
+Evidently she detested the sight of it.
+
+Just then up came a second woman with two small boys hanging at her skirts.
+They were ragged and sick-looking. There was something about the expression
+of even the tiny knot of hair at the back of the woman's head which told of
+anxious poverty. With envious curiosity she hurried up to see what a
+luckier mortal had found, crowding to look over her shoulder. The woman in
+black drew haughtily away and clutched the Noah's ark with a gesture of
+proprietorship.
+
+"Go away! This is my affair." Miss Terry read her expression and sniffed.
+"There is the Christmas spirit coming out again," she said to herself.
+"Look at her face!"
+
+The black-gowned woman prepared to move on with the toy under her arm. But
+the second woman caught hold of her skirt and began to speak earnestly. She
+pointed to the Noah's ark, then to her two children. Her eyes were
+beseeching. The little boys crowded forward eagerly. But some wicked
+spirit seemed to have seized the finder of the ark. Angrily she shook off
+the hand of the other woman, and clutching the box yet more firmly under
+her arm, she hurried away. Once, twice, she turned and shook her head at
+the ragged woman who followed her. Then, with a savage gesture at the two
+children, she disappeared beyond Miss Terry's straining eyes. The poor
+woman and her boys followed forlornly at a distance.
+
+"They really wanted it, that old Noah's ark!" exclaimed Miss Terry in
+amazement. "I can scarcely believe it. But why did that other creature keep
+the thing? I see! Only because she found they cared for it. Well, that is a
+happy spirit for Christmas time, I should say! Humph! I did not expect to
+find anything quite so mean as _that!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MIRANDA
+
+
+Miss Terry returned to the fireside, fumbled in the box, and drew out a
+doll. She was an ugly, old-fashioned doll, with bruised waxen face of no
+particular color. Her mop of flaxen hair was straggling and uneven, much
+the worse for the attention of generations of moths. She wore a faded green
+silk dress in the style of Lincoln's day, and a primitive bonnet, evidently
+made by childish hands. She was a strange, dead-looking figure, with pale
+eyelids closed, as Miss Terry dragged her from the box. But when she was
+set upright the lids snapped open and a pair of bright blue eyes looked
+straight into those of Miss Terry. It was so sudden that the lady nearly
+gasped.
+
+"Miranda!" she exclaimed. "It is old Miranda! I have not thought of her for
+years." She held the doll at arm's length, gazing fixedly at her for some
+minutes.
+
+"I cannot burn her," she muttered at last. "It would seem almost like
+murder. I don't like to throw her away, but I have vowed to get rid of
+these things to-night. And I'll do it, anyway. Yes, I'll make an experiment
+of her. I wonder what sort of trouble she will cause."
+
+Not even Miss Terry could think of seeing old Miranda lying exposed to the
+winter night. She found a piece of paper, rolled up the doll in a neat
+package, and tied it with red string. It was, to look upon, entirely a
+tempting package. Once more she stole down the steps and hesitated where to
+leave Miranda: not on the sidewalk,--for some reason that seemed
+impossible. But near the foot of the flight of steps leading to the front
+door she deposited the doll. The white package shone out plainly in the
+illuminated street. There was no doubt that it would be readily seen.
+
+With a quite unexplainable interest Miss Terry watched to see what would
+happen to Miranda. She waited for some time. The street seemed deserted.
+Miss Terry caught the faint sound of singing. The choristers were passing
+through a neighboring street, and doubtless all wayfarers within hearing of
+their voices were following in their wake.
+
+She was thoroughly interested in her grim joke, but she was becoming
+impatient. Were there to be no more passers? Must the doll stay there
+unreclaimed until morning? Presently she became aware of a child's figure
+drawing near. It was a little girl of about ten, very shabbily dressed,
+with tangled yellow curls hanging over her shoulders. There was something
+familiar about her appearance, Miss Terry could not say what it was. She
+came hurrying along the sidewalk with a preoccupied air, and seemed about
+to pass the steps without seeing the package lying there. But just as she
+was opposite the window, her eye caught the gleam of the white paper. She
+paused. She looked at it eagerly; it was such a tempting package, both as
+to its size and shape! She went closer and bent down to examine it. She
+took it into her bare little hands and seemed to squeeze it gently. There
+is no mistaking the contours of a doll, however well it may be enveloped in
+paper wrappings. The child's eyes grew more and more eager. She glanced
+behind her furtively; she looked up and down the street. Then with a sudden
+intuition she looked straight ahead, up the flight of steps.
+
+[Illustration: SHE LOOKED UP AND DOWN THE STREET]
+
+Miss Terry read her mind accurately. She was thinking that probably the
+doll belonged in that house; some one must have dropped the package while
+going out or in. Would she ring the bell and return it? Miss Terry had
+not thought of that possibility. But she shook her head and her lip curled.
+"Return it? Of course not! Ragged children do not usually return promising
+packages which they have found,--even on Christmas Eve. Look now!"
+
+Once more the child glanced stealthily behind her, up and down the street.
+Once more she looked up at the dark house before her, the only black spot
+in a wreath of brilliancy. She did not see the face peering at her through
+the curtains, a face which scanned her own half wistfully. What was to
+become of Miranda? The little girl thrust the package under her ragged coat
+and ran away down the street as fast as her legs could take her.
+
+"A thief!" cried Miss Terry. "That is the climax. I have detected a child
+taking what she knew did not belong to her, on Christmas Eve! Where are all
+their Sunday School lessons and their social improvement classes? I knew
+it! This Christmas spirit that one hears so much about is nothing but an
+empty sham. I have proved it to my satisfaction to-night. I will burn the
+rest of these toys, every one of them, and then go to bed. It is too
+disgusting! She was a nice-looking child, too. Poor old Miranda!"
+
+With something like a sigh Miss Terry strode back to the fire, where the
+play box stood gaping. She had made but a small inroad upon its heaped-up
+treasures. She threw herself listlessly into the chair and began to pull
+over the things. Broken games and animals, dolls' dresses painfully
+tailored by unskilled fingers, disjointed members,--sorry relics of past
+pleasures,--one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and
+finger and tossed them into the fire. Her face showed not a qualm at
+parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good
+housekeeper's duty fulfilled. With queer contortions the bits writhed on
+the coals, and finally flared into dissolution, vanishing up chimney in a
+shower of sparks to the heaven of spent toys.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
+
+
+Almost at the bottom of the box Miss Terry's fingers closed about a small
+object. Once more she drew out the papier-mâché Angel which had so excited
+the wonder of Norah when once before that evening it had come to light.
+
+Miss Terry held it up and looked at it with the same expression on her
+face, half tender, half contemptuous. "The Christmas Angel!" she murmured
+involuntarily, as she had done before. And again there flashed through her
+mind a vivid picture.
+
+It was the day before Christmas, fifty years earlier. She and her brother
+Tom were trimming the Christmas tree in this very library. She saw Tom, in
+a white piqué suit with short socks that were always slipping down his fat
+legs. She saw herself in a white dress and blue ribbons, pouting in a
+corner. They had been quarreling about the Christmas tree, disputing as to
+which of them should light the first candle when the time arrived. Then
+their mother came to them smiling, a sweet-faced lady who seemed not to
+notice the red faces and the tears. She put something into Tom's hand
+saying, "This is the Christmas Angel of peace and good-will. Hang it on the
+tree, children, so that it may shed a blessing on all who come here to give
+and to receive."
+
+How lovely and pink it looked in Tom's hand! Little Angelina had thought it
+the most beautiful thing she had ever seen,--and holy, too, as if it had
+some blessed charm. Fiddlestick! What queer fancies children have! Miss
+Terry remembered how a strange thrill had crept through Angelina as she
+gazed at it. Then she and Tom looked at each other and were ashamed of
+their quarrel. Suddenly Tom held out the Angel to his sister. "You hang it
+on the tree, Angelina," he said magnanimously. "I know you want to."
+
+But she--little fool!--she too had a fit of generosity.
+
+"No, you hang it, Tom. You're taller," she said.
+
+"I'll hang it at the very top of the tree!" he replied, nothing loath.
+Eagerly he mounted the step-ladder, while Angelina watched him enviously,
+thinking how clumsy he was, and how much better she could do it.
+
+How funny and fat Tom had looked on top of the ladder, reaching as high as
+he dared! The ladder began to wobble, and he balanced precariously, while
+Angelina clutched at his fat ankles with a scream of fright. But Tom
+said:--
+
+"Ow! Angelina, let go my ankles! You hurt! Now don't scream. I shan't fall.
+Don't you know that this is the Christmas Angel, and he will never let me
+get hurt on Christmas Eve?"
+
+Swaying wildly on one toe Tom had clutched at the air, at the tree
+itself,--anywhere for support. Yet, almost as if by a miracle, he did not
+fall. And the Christmas Angel was looking down from the very top of the
+tree.
+
+Miss Terry laid the little pink figure in her lap and mused. "Mother was
+wise!" she sighed. "She knew how to settle our quarrels in those days.
+Perhaps if she had still been here things would have gone differently. Tom
+might not have left me for good. _For good._" She emphasized the words with
+a nod as if arguing against something.
+
+Again she took up the Christmas Angel and looked earnestly at it. Could it
+be that tears were glistening in her eyes? Certainly not! With a sudden
+sniff and jerk of the shoulders she leaned forward, holding the Angel
+towards the fire. This should follow the other useless toys. But something
+seemed to stay her hand. She drew back, hesitated, then rose to her feet.
+
+"I can't burn it," she said. "It's no use, I can't burn it. But I don't
+want to see the thing around. I will put this out on the sidewalk, too.
+Possibly this may be different and do some good to somebody."
+
+She wrapped the shawl about her shoulders and once more ran down the steps.
+She left the Angel face upward in the middle of the sidewalk, and retreated
+quickly to the house. As she opened the door to enter, she caught the
+distant chorus of fresh young voices singing in a neighboring square:--
+
+    "Angels from the realms of glory,
+    Wing your flight o'er all the earth."
+
+When she took her place behind the curtain she was trembling a little, she
+could not guess why. But now she watched with renewed eagerness. What was
+to be the fate of the Christmas Angel? Would he fall into the right hands
+and be hung upon some Christmas tree ere morning? Would he--
+
+Miss Terry held her breath. A man was staggering along the street toward
+her. He whistled noisily a vulgar song, as he reeled from curb to railing,
+threatening to fall at every step. A drunken man on Christmas Eve! Miss
+Terry felt a great loathing for him. He was at the foot of the steps now.
+He was close upon the Angel. Would he see it, or would he tread upon it in
+his disgusting blindness?
+
+Yes--no! He saw the little pink image lying on the bricks, and with a lurch
+forward bent to examine it. Miss Terry flattened her nose against the pane
+eagerly. She expected to see him fall upon the Angel bodily. But no; he
+righted himself with a whoop of drunken mirth.
+
+"Angel!" she heard him croak with maudlin accent. "Pink Angel, begorrah!
+What doin' 'ere, eh? Whoop! Go back to sky, Angel!" and lifting a brutal
+foot he kicked the image into the street. Then with a shriek of laughter he
+staggered away out of sight.
+
+Miss Terry found herself trembling with indignation. The idea! He had
+kicked the Christmas Angel,--the very Angel that Tom had hung on their
+tree! It was sacrilege, or at least--Fiddlestick! Miss Terry's mind was
+growing confused. She had a sudden impulse to rescue the toy from being
+trampled into filthiness. The fire was better than that.
+
+She hurried down the steps into the street, forgetting her shawl. She
+sought in the snow and snatched the pink morsel to safety. Straight to the
+fire she carried it, and once more held it to the flames. But again she
+found it impossible to burn the thing. Once, twice, she tried. But each
+time something seemed to clutch back her wrist. At last she shrugged
+impatiently and laid the Angel on the mantelpiece beside the square old
+marble clock, which marked the hour of half-past eight.
+
+"Well, I won't burn it to-night," she reflected. "Somehow, I can't do it
+just now. I don't see what has got into me! But to-morrow I will. Yes,
+to-morrow I will."
+
+She sat down in the armchair and fumbled in the old play box for the
+remaining scraps. There were but a few meaningless bits of ribbon and
+gauze, with the end of a Christmas candle, the survivor of some past
+festival, burned on some tree in the past. All these but the last she
+tossed into the fire, where they made a final protesting blaze. The
+candle-end fell to the floor unnoticed.
+
+"There! That is the last of the stuff," she exclaimed with grim
+satisfaction, shaking the dust from her black silk skirt. "It is all gone
+now, thank Heaven, and I can go to bed in peace. No, I forgot Norah. I
+suppose I must sit up and wait for her. Bother the girl! She ought to be in
+by now. What can she find to amuse her all this time? Christmas Eve!
+Fiddlestick! But I have got rid of a lot of rubbish to-night, and that is
+worth something."
+
+She sank back in her chair and clasped her hands over her breast with a
+sigh. She felt strangely weary. Her eyes sought the clock once more, and
+doing so rested upon the Christmas Angel lying beside it. She frowned and
+closed her eyes to shut out the sight with its haunting memories and
+suggestions----
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BEFORE THE FIRE
+
+
+Suddenly there was a volume of sound outside, and a great brightness filled
+the room. Miss Terry opened her eyes. The fire was burning red; but a
+yellow light, as from thousands of candles, shone in at the window, and
+there was the sound of singing,--the sweetest singing that Miss Terry had
+ever heard.
+
+    "An Angel of the Lord came down,
+        And glory shone around."
+
+The words seemed chanted by the voices of young angels. Miss Terry passed
+her hands over her eyes and glanced at the clock. But what the hour was she
+never noticed, for her gaze was filled with something else. Beside the
+clock, in the spot where she had laid it a few minutes before, was the
+Christmas Angel. But now, instead of lying helplessly on its back, it was
+standing on rosy feet, with arms outstretched toward her. Over its head
+fluttered gauzy wings. From under the yellow hair which rippled over the
+shoulders two blue eyes beamed kindly upon her, and the mouth widened into
+the sweetest smile.
+
+"Peace on earth to men of good-will!" cried the Angel, and the tone of his
+speech was music, yet quite natural and thrilling.
+
+Miss Terry stared hard at the Angel and rubbed her eyes, saying to herself,
+"Fiddlestick! I am dreaming!"
+
+But she could not rub away the vision. When she opened her eyes the Angel
+still stood tiptoe on the mantel-shelf, smiling at her and shaking his
+golden head.
+
+"Angelina!" said the Angel softly; and Miss Terry trembled to hear her name
+thus spoken for the first time in years. "Angelina, you do not want to
+believe your own eyes, do you? But I am real; more real than the things you
+see every day. You must believe in me. I am the Christmas Angel."
+
+"I know it." Miss Terry's voice was hoarse and unmanageable, as of one in a
+nightmare. "I remember."
+
+"You remember!" repeated the Angel. "Yes; you remember the day when you and
+Tom hung me on the Christmas tree. You were a sweet little girl then, with
+blue eyes and yellow curls. You believed the Christmas story and loved
+Santa Claus. Then you were simple and affectionate and generous and
+happy."
+
+"Fiddlestick!" Miss Terry tried to say. But the word would not come.
+
+"Now you have lost the old belief and the old love," went on the Angel.
+"Now you have studied books and read wise men's sayings. You understand the
+higher criticism, and the higher charity, and the higher egoism. You don't
+believe in mere giving. You don't believe in the Christmas economics,--you
+know better. But are you happy, dear Angelina?"
+
+Again Miss Terry thrilled at the sound of her name so sweetly spoken; but
+she answered nothing. The Angel replied for her.
+
+"No, you are not happy because you have cut yourself off from the things
+that bring folk together in peace and good-will at this holy time. Where
+are your friends? Where is your brother to-night? You are still hard and
+unforgiving to Tom. You refused to see him to-day, though he wrote so
+boyishly, so humbly and affectionately. You have not tried to make any soul
+happy. You don't believe in _me_, the Christmas Spirit."
+
+There is such a word as Fiddlestick, whatever it may mean. But Miss Terry's
+mind and tongue were unable to form it.
+
+"The Christmas spirit!" continued the Angel. "What is life worth if one
+cannot believe in the Christmas spirit?"
+
+With a powerful effort Miss Terry shook off her nightmare sufficiently to
+say, "The Christmas spirit is no real thing. I have proved it to-night. It
+is not real. It is a humbug!"
+
+"Not real? A humbug?" repeated the Angel softly. "And you have proved it,
+Angelina, this very night?"
+
+Miss Terry nodded.
+
+"I know what you have done," said the Angel. "I know very well. How keen
+you were! How clever! You made a test of Chance, to prove your point."
+
+Again Miss Terry nodded with complacency.
+
+"What knowledge of the world! What grasp of human nature!" commented the
+Angel, smiling. "It is like you mere mortals to say, 'I will make my test
+in my own way. If certain things happen, I shall foresee what the result
+must be. If certain other things happen, I shall know that I am right.'
+Events fall out as you expect, and you smile with satisfaction, feeling
+your wisdom justified. It ought to make you happy. But does it?"
+
+Miss Terry regarded the Angel doubtfully.
+
+"Look now!" he went on, holding up a rosy finger. "You are so
+near-sighted! You are so unimaginative! You do not dream beyond the thing
+you see. You judge the tale finished while the best has yet to be told. And
+you stake your faith, your hope, your charity upon this blind human
+judgment,--which is mere Chance!"
+
+Miss Terry opened her lips to say, "I saw--" but the Angel interrupted her.
+
+"You saw but the beginning," he said. "You saw but the first page of each
+history. Shall I turn over the leaves and let you read what really
+happened? Shall I help you to see the whole truth instead of a part? On
+this night holy Truth, which is of Heaven, comes for all men to see and to
+believe. Look!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+JACK AGAIN
+
+
+The Christmas Angel gently waved his hand to and fro. Gradually, as Miss
+Terry sat back in her chair, the library grew dark; or rather, things faded
+into an indistinguishable blur. Then it seemed as if she were sitting at a
+theatre gazing at a great stage. But at this theatre there was nothing
+about her, nothing between her and the place where things were happening.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+First she saw two little ragamuffins quarreling over something in the snow.
+She recognized them. They were the two Jewish boys who had picked up the
+Jack-in-the-box. An officer appeared, and they ran away, the bigger boy
+having possession of the toy; the smaller one with fists in his eyes,
+bawling with disappointment.
+
+Miss Terry's lips curled with the cynical disgust which she had felt when
+first witnessing this scene. But a sweet voice--and she knew it was the
+Angel's--whispered in her ear, "Wait and see!"
+
+She watched the two boys run through the streets until they came to a dark
+corner. There the little fellow caught up with the other, and once more the
+struggle began. It was a hard and bloody fight. But this time the victory
+was with the smaller lad, who used his fists and feet like an enraged
+animal, until the other howled for mercy and handed over the disputed toy.
+
+"Whatcher want it fer, Sam?" he blubbered as he saw it go into the little
+fellow's pocket.
+
+"Mind yer own business! I just want it," answered Sam surlily.
+
+"Betcher I know," taunted the bigger boy.
+
+"Betcher yer don't."
+
+"Do!"
+
+"Don't!"
+
+Another fight seemed imminent. But wisdom prevailed with Sammy. He would
+not challenge fate a third time. "Come on, then, and see," he grunted.
+
+And Ike followed. Off the two trudged, through the brilliantly lighted
+streets, until they came to a part of the city where the ways were narrower
+and dark.
+
+"Huh! Knowed you was comin' here," commented Ike as they turned into a
+grim, dirty alley.
+
+Little Sam growled, "Didn't!" apparently as a matter of habit.
+
+"Did!" reasserted Ike. "Just where I was comin' myself."
+
+Sam turned to him with a grin.
+
+"Was yer now? By--! Ain't that funny? I thought of it right off."
+
+"Sure. Same here!"
+
+They both burst into a guffaw and executed an impromptu double-shuffle of
+delight. They were at the door of a tenement house with steep stairs
+leading into darkness. Up three flights pounded the two pairs of heavy
+boots, till they reached a half-open door, whence issued the clatter of a
+sewing-machine and the voices of children. Sam stood on the threshold
+grinning debonairly, with hands thrust into his pockets. Ike peered over
+his shoulder, also grinning.
+
+It was a meagre room into which they gazed, a room the chief furniture of
+which seemed to be babies. Two little ones sprawled on the floor. A third
+tiny tot lay in a broken-down carriage beside the door. A pale, ill-looking
+woman was running the machine. On the cot bed was crumpled a fragile
+little fellow of about five, and a small pair of crutches lay across the
+foot of the bed.
+
+When the two boys appeared in the doorway, the woman stopped her machine
+and the children set up a howl of pleasure. "Sammy! Ikey!" cried the woman,
+smiling a wan welcome, as the babies crept and toddled toward the
+newcomers. "Where ye come from?"
+
+"Been to see the shops and the lights in the swell houses," answered Sammy
+with a grimace. "Gee! Ain't they wastin' candles to beat the cars!"
+
+"Enough to last a family a whole year," muttered Ike with disgust.
+
+The woman sighed. "Maybe they ain't wasted exactly," she said. "How I'd
+like to see 'em! But I got to finish this job. I told the chil'ren they
+mustn't expect anything this Christmas. But they are too little to know the
+difference anyway; all but Joe. I wish I had something for Joe."
+
+"I got something for Joe," said Sammy unexpectedly.
+
+The face of the pale little cripple lighted.
+
+"What is it?" he asked eagerly. "Oh, what is it? A real Christmas present
+for me?"
+
+"Naw! It ain't a Christmas present," said Sam.
+
+"We don't care anything about Christmas," volunteered Ikey with a grin.
+
+Sam looked at him with a frown of rebuke.
+
+"It's just a _present_," he said. "And it didn't cost a cent. I didn't buy
+it. I--we found it!"
+
+"Found it in the street?" Joe's eyes shone.
+
+"Yah!" the boys nodded.
+
+"Oh, it _is_ a Christmas present!" cried Joe. "Santa Claus must have
+dropped it there for me, because he knew we hadn't any chimney in this
+house, and he sent you kind, kind boys to bring it to me."
+
+The two urchins looked sideways at each other, but said nothing. Presently
+Sam drew out the box from his pocket and tried to thrust it into Ike's
+hand. "You give it to 'um," he said. "You're the biggest."
+
+"Naw! You give it. You found it," protested Ike.
+
+"Ah, g'wan!"
+
+"Big fool!"
+
+There was a tussle, and it almost seemed as if the past unpleasantness was
+to be repeated from an opposite cause. But Joe's voice settled the dispute.
+
+"Oh, Sammy, please!" he cried. "I can't wait another minute. Do please give
+it to me now!"
+
+At these words Sam stepped forward without further argument and laid the
+box on the bed in front of the little cripple. The babies crowded about.
+The mother left her machine and stood smiling faintly at the foot of the
+bed.
+
+Joe pressed the spring. _Ping!_ Out sprang the Jack-in-the-box, with the
+same red nose, the same leer, the same roguish eyes which had surprised the
+children of fifty years ago.
+
+[Illustration: _PING!_ OUT SPRANG THE JACK-IN-THE-BOX]
+
+Jack was always sure of his audience. My! How they screamed and begged Joe
+to "do it again." And as for Joe, he lay back on his pillow and laughed and
+laughed as though he would never stop. It was the first Jack any of them
+had seen.
+
+Tears stood in the mother's eyes. "Well," she said, "it's as good as a play
+to see him. Joe hasn't laughed like that for months. You boys have done him
+lots of good. I wouldn't wonder if it helped him get well! If you was
+Christians I'd say you showed the real Christmas spirit. But Lord--perhaps
+ye do, all the same! I dunno!"
+
+Sam and Ike were so busy playing with the children that they did not hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gradually the tenement house faded and became a blur before Miss Terry's
+eyes. Once more she saw the mantel-shelf before her and the Christmas Angel
+with outstretched arms waving to and fro. "You see!" he said. "You did not
+guess all the pleasure that was shut up in that box with old Jack, did
+you?"
+
+Miss Terry shook her head.
+
+"And you see how different it all was from what you thought. Now let us see
+what became of the Canton-flannel dog."
+
+"The Flanton Dog." Miss Terry amended the phrase under her breath. It
+seemed so natural to use Tom's word.
+
+"Yes, the Flanton Dog," the Angel smiled. "What do you think became of
+him?"
+
+"I saw what became of him," said Miss Terry. "Bob Cooper threw him under an
+automobile, and he was crushed flatter than a pancake."
+
+"Then you left the window," said the Angel. "In your human way you assumed
+that this was the end. But wait and see."
+
+Once more the room darkened and blurred, and Miss Terry looked out upon
+past events as upon a busy, ever-shifting stage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE DOG AGAIN
+
+
+She saw the snowy street, into which, from the tip of his stick, Bob Cooper
+had just tossed the Flanton Dog. She saw, what she had not seen before, the
+woman and child on the opposite side of the street. She saw the baby
+stretch out wistful hands after the dog lying in the snow. Then an
+automobile honked past, and she felt again the thrill of horror as it ran
+over the poor old toy. At the same moment the child screamed, and she saw
+it point tearfully at the Flanton tragedy. The mother, who had seen nothing
+of all this, stooped and spoke to him reprovingly.
+
+"What's the matter, Johnnie?" she said. "Sh! Don't make such a noise. Here
+we are at Mrs. Wales's gate, and you mustn't make a fuss. Now be a good boy
+and wait here till Mother comes out."
+
+She rang the area bell and stood basket in hand, waiting to be admitted.
+But Johnnie gazed at one spot in the street, with eyes full of tears, and
+with now and then a sob gurgling from his throat. He could not forget what
+he had seen.
+
+The door opened for the mother, who disappeared inside the house, with one
+last command to the child: "Now be a good boy, Johnnie. I'll be back in
+half a minute."
+
+Hardly was she out of sight when Johnnie started through the snowdrift
+toward the middle of the street. With difficulty he lifted his little legs
+out of the deep snow; now and then he stumbled and fell into the soft mass.
+But he rose only the more determined upon his errand, and kept his eyes
+fixed on the wreck of the Flanton Dog.
+
+Bob Cooper, who was idly strolling up and down the block, smoking a
+cigarette, as he watched the flitting girlish shadows in a certain window
+opposite, saw the child's frantic struggles in the snow and was intensely
+amused. "Bah Jove!" he chuckled. "I believe he's after the wretched dawg
+that I tossed over there with my stick. Fahncy it!" And carelessly he
+puffed a whiff of smoke.
+
+At last the baby reached the middle of the street and stooped to pick up
+the battered toy. It was flattened and shapeless, but the child clasped it
+tenderly and began to coo softly to it.
+
+"Bah Jove!" repeated Cooper. "Fahncy caring so much about anything! Poor
+kid! Perhaps that is all the Christmas he will have." He blew a thoughtful
+puff through his nose. "Christmas Eve!" The thought flashed through his
+mind with a new appeal.
+
+Just then came a sudden "_Honk, honk!_" An automobile had turned the corner
+and was coming up at full speed. It was the same machine which had passed a
+few minutes earlier in the opposite direction.
+
+"Hi there!" Cooper yelled to the child. But the latter was sitting in the
+snow in the middle of the street, rocking back and forth, with the Flanton
+Dog in his arms. There was scarcely time for action. Bob dropped his
+cigarette and his cane, made one leap into the street and another to the
+child, and by the impact of his body threw the baby into the drift at the
+curb. With a horrified _honk_ the automobile passed over the young man, who
+lay senseless in the snow.
+
+[Illustration: BOB COOPER SAVES THE BABY]
+
+He was not killed. Miss Terry saw him taken to his home close by, where his
+broken leg was set and his bruises attended to. She saw him lying bandaged
+and white on his bed when the woman and her child were brought to see him.
+Johnnie was still clasping closely the unlucky Flanton Dog.
+
+"Well, Kid," said the young man feebly, "so you saved the dog, after all."
+
+"O sir!" cried the poor woman, weeping. "Only to think that he would not
+be here now but for you. What a Christmas that would have been for me! You
+were so good, so brave!"
+
+"Oh, rot!" protested Bob faintly. "Had to do it; my fault anyway; Christmas
+Eve,--couldn't see a kid hurt on Christmas Eve."
+
+He called the attendant and asked for the pocket-book which had been in his
+coat at the time of the accident. Putting it into the woman's hand, he
+said, "Good-by. Get Johnnie something really jolly for Christmas. I'm
+afraid the dog is about all in. Get him a new one."
+
+But Johnnie refused to have a new dog. It was the poor, shapeless Flanton
+animal which remained the darling of his heart for many a moon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All this of past and future Miss Terry knew through the Angel's power. When
+once more the library lightened, and she saw the pink figure smiling at her
+from the mantel, she spoke of her own accord.
+
+"It was my fault, because I put the dog in the way. I caused all that
+trouble."
+
+"Trouble?" said the Angel, puzzled. "Do you call it _trouble?_ Do you not
+see what it has done for that heartless youth? It brought his good moment.
+Perhaps he will be a different man after this. And as for the child; he was
+made happy by something that would otherwise have been wasted, and he has
+gained a friend who will not forget him. Trouble! And do you think _you_
+did it?" He laughed knowingly.
+
+"I certainly did," said Miss Terry firmly.
+
+"But it was I, yes _I_, the Christmas Spirit, who put it into your head to
+do what you did. You may not believe it, but so it was. You too, even you,
+Angelina, could not quite escape the influence of the Christmas Spirit, and
+so these things have happened. But now let us see what became of the third
+experiment."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+NOAH AGAIN
+
+
+In the street of candles a woman dressed all in black had picked up the
+poor old Noah's ark and was looking at it wildly. She was a widow who had
+just lost her only child, a little son, and she was in a state of morbid
+bitterness bordering on distraction.
+
+When the second woman with the two little ones came up and begged for the
+toy, something hard and sullen and cruel rose in the widow's heart, and she
+refused angrily to give up the thing. She hated those two boys who had been
+spared when her own was taken. She would not make them happy.
+
+"No, you shall not have it," she cried, clutching the Noah's ark fiercely.
+"I will destroy it."
+
+The poor woman and the children followed her wistfully. The little boys
+were crying. They were cold and hungry and disappointed. They had come so
+near to something pleasant. They had almost been lucky; but the luck had
+passed over their heads to another.
+
+The woman in mourning strode on rapidly, the thoughts within her no less
+black than the garments which she wore. She hated the world; she hated the
+people who lived in it. She hated Christmas time, when every one seemed
+merry except herself. And yes, yes! Most of all she hated children. She
+clenched her teeth wickedly; her mind reeled.
+
+Suddenly, somewhere, a chorus of happy voices began to sing the words of an
+old carol:--
+
+    "Holy night! Peaceful night!
+    All is dark save the light,
+    Yonder where they sweet vigil keep,
+    O'er the Babe who in silent sleep
+      Rests in heavenly peace."
+
+Softly and sweetly the childish voices ascended from the street. The woman
+in black stopped short, breathing hard. She saw the band of choristers
+standing in a group on the sidewalk and in the snow, their hats pulled down
+over their eyes, their collars turned up around their ears, their hands
+deep in pockets. In their midst rose the tall wooden cross carried by a
+little fellow with yellow hair. They sang as simply and as heartily as a
+flock of birds out in the snow.
+
+The woman gave a great sob. Her little lad had been a choir boy,--perhaps
+these were his one-time comrades. The second verse of the carol rang out
+sweetly:--
+
+    "Holy night! Peaceful night!
+    Only for shepherds' sight
+    Came blest visions of angel throngs,
+    With their loud Hallelujah songs,
+      Saying, Jesus is come!"
+
+Suddenly it seemed to the distracted mother that her own boy's voice
+blended with those others. He too was singing in honor of that Child. Happy
+and ever young, he was bidding her rejoice in the day which made all
+childhood sacred. And for his sake she had been hating children!
+
+With a sudden revulsion of feeling she turned to see what had become of the
+poor mother and her boys. They were not far behind, huddling in the shadow.
+The black woman strode quickly up to them. They shrank pitifully at her
+approach, and she felt the shame of it. They were afraid of her!
+
+"Here," she said, thrusting the Noah's ark into the hands of the larger
+boy. "Take it. It belongs to you."
+
+The child took it timidly. The mother began to protest thanks. Trying to
+control the shake in her voice the dark lady spoke again. "Have you
+prepared a Christmas for your children?"
+
+The woman shook her head. "I have nothing," she sighed. "A roof over our
+heads, that's all."
+
+"Your husband?"
+
+"My man died a month ago."
+
+So other folk had raw sorrows, too. The mourner had forgotten that.
+
+"There is no one expecting you at home?" Again the woman shook her head
+dolefully. "Come with me," said the dark lady impulsively. "You shall be my
+guests to-night. And to-morrow I will make a Christmas for the children.
+The house shall put off its shadow. I too will light candles. I have
+toys,"--her voice broke,--"and clothing; many things, which are being
+wasted. That is not right! Something led you to me, or me to you;
+something,--perhaps it was an Angel,--whoever dropped that Noah's ark in
+the street. An Angel might do that, I believe. Come with me."
+
+The woman and her sons followed her, rejoicing greatly in the midst of
+their wonder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were tears in the eyes through which Miss Terry saw once more the
+Christmas Angel. She wiped them hastily. But still the Angel seemed to
+shine with a fairer radiance.
+
+"You see!" was all he said. And Miss Terry bowed her head. She began to
+understand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MIRANDA AGAIN
+
+
+Once more, on the wings of vision, Miss Terry was out in the snowy street.
+She was following the fleet steps of a little girl who carried a
+white-paper package under her arm. Miss Terry knew that she was learning
+the fate of her old doll, Miranda, whom her own hands had thrust out into a
+cold world.
+
+Poor Miranda! After all these years to become the property of a thief! Mary
+was the little thief's name. Hugging the tempting package close, Mary ran
+and ran until she was out of breath. Her one thought was to get as far as
+possible from the place where the bundle had lain. For she suspected that
+the steps where she had found it led up to the doll's home. That was why in
+her own eyes also she was a little thief. But now she had run so far and
+had turned so many corners that she could not find her way back if she
+would. There was triumph in the thought. Mary chuckled to herself as she
+stopped running and began to walk leisurely in the neighborhood with which
+she was more familiar.
+
+She pinched the package gently. Yes, there could be no doubt about it. It
+was a doll,--not a very large doll; but Mary reflected that she had never
+thought she should care for a large doll. Undoubtedly it was a very nice
+one. Had she not found it in a swell part of the city, on the steps of a
+swell-looking house? Mary gloated over the doll as she fancied it; with
+real hair, and eyes that opened and shut; with four little white teeth, and
+hands with dimples in the knuckles. She had seen such dolls in the windows
+of the big shops. But she had never hoped to have one for her very own.
+
+"Maybe it will have on a blue silk dress and white kid shoes, like that one
+I saw this morning!" she mused rapturously.
+
+She pinched the spot where she fancied the doll's feet ought to be.
+
+"Yes, she's got shoes, sure enough! I bet they're white, too. They _feel_
+white. Oh, what fun I shall have with her,"--she hugged the doll
+fondly,--"if Uncle and Aunt don't take her away!"
+
+The sudden thought made her stand still in horror. "They sold Mother's
+little clock for rum," she said bitterly. "They sold the ring with the red
+stone that Father gave me on my birthday when I was seven. They sold the
+presents that I got at Sunday School last year. Oh, wouldn't it be dreadful
+if they should sell my new doll! And I know they will want to if they see
+her." She squeezed the bundle closer with the prescient pang of parting.
+
+"Maybe they'll be out somewhere." With this faint hope she reached the
+tenement and crept up the dingy stairs. She peeped in at the door. Alas!
+Her uncle and aunt were in the kitchen, through which she had to pass. They
+had company; some dirty-looking men and women, and there were a jug and
+glasses on the table before them. Mary's heart sank, but she nodded bravely
+to the company and tried to slip through the crowd to the other room. But
+her aunt was quick to see that she carried something under her coat.
+
+"What you got there? A Christmas present?" she sneered.
+
+Mary flushed. "No," she said slowly, "just something I found."
+
+"Found? Hello, what is it? A package!"
+
+Her uncle advanced and snatched it from her.
+
+"Please," pleaded Mary, "please, I found it. It is mine. I think it is only
+a doll."
+
+"A doll! Huh! Who needs a doll?" hiccoughed her uncle. "We want something
+more to drink. We'll sell it--"
+
+A bellow of laughter resounded through the room. The paper being torn
+roughly away, poor Miranda stood revealed in all her faded beauty. The
+pallid waxen face, straggling hair, and old-fashioned dress presented a
+sorry sight to the greedy eyes which had expected to find something
+exchangeable for drink. A sorry sight she was to Mary, who had hoped for
+something so much lovelier. A flush of disappointment came into her cheek,
+and tears to her eyes.
+
+"Here, take your old doll," said her uncle roughly, thrusting it into her
+arms. "Take your old doll and get away with her. If that's the best you can
+find you'd better _steal_ something next time."
+
+Steal something! Had she not in fact stolen it? Mary knew very well that
+she had, and she flushed pinker yet to think what a fool she had made of
+herself for nothing. She took the despised doll and retreated into the
+other room, followed by a chorus of jeers and comments. She banged the door
+behind her and sat down with poor Miranda on her knees, crying as if her
+heart would break. She had so longed for a beautiful doll! It did seem too
+cruel that when she found one it should turn out to be so ugly. She seized
+poor Miranda and shook her fiercely.
+
+"You horrid old thing!" she said. "Ain't you ashamed to fool me so? Ain't
+you ashamed to make me think you was a lovely doll with pretty clo'es and
+_white kid shoes?_ Ain't you?"
+
+She shook Miranda again until her eyeballs rattled in her head. The doll
+fell to the floor and lay there with closed eyes. Her face was pallid and
+ghastly. Her bonnet had fallen off, and her hair stuck out wildly in every
+direction. Her legs were doubled under her in the most helpless fashion.
+She was the forlornest figure of a doll imaginable. Presently Mary drew her
+hands away from her eyes and looked down at Miranda. There was something in
+the doll's attitude as she lay there which touched the little girl's heart.
+Once she had seen a woman who had been injured in the street,--she would
+never forget it. The poor creature's eyes had been closed, and her face,
+under the fallen bonnet, was of this same pasty color. Mary shuddered.
+Suddenly she felt a warm rush of pity for the doll.
+
+"You poor old thing!" she exclaimed, looking at Miranda almost tenderly.
+"I'm sorry I shook you. You look so tired and sad and homesick! I wonder if
+somebody is worrying about you this minute. It was very wicked of me to
+take you away--on Christmas Eve, too! I wish I had left you where I found
+you. Maybe some little girl is crying now because you are lost."
+
+Mary stooped and lifted the doll gently upon her knees. As she took Miranda
+up, the blue eyes opened and seemed to look full at her. Miranda's one
+beauty was her eyes. Mary felt her heart grow warmer and warmer toward the
+quaint stranger.
+
+"You have lovely eyes," she murmured. "I think after all you are almost
+pretty. Perhaps I should grow to like you awfully. You are not a bit like
+the doll I hoped to have; but that is not your fault." A thought made her
+face brighten. "Why, if you had been a beautiful doll they would have taken
+you away and sold you for rum." Her face expressed utter disgust. She
+hugged Miranda close with a sudden outburst of affection. "Oh, you dear old
+thing!" she cried. "I am so glad you are--just like this. I am so glad, for
+now I can keep you always and always, and no one will want to take you away
+from me."
+
+She rocked to and fro, holding the doll tightly to her heart. Mary was not
+one to feel a half-passion about anything. "I will make you some new
+dresses," she said, fingering the old-fashioned silk with a puzzled air. "I
+wonder why your mother dressed you so queerly? She was not much of a sewer
+if she made this bonnet!" Scornfully she took off the primitive bonnet and
+smoothed out the tangled hair. "I wonder what you have on underneath," she
+said.
+
+With gentle fingers she began to undress Miranda. Off came the green silk
+dress with its tight "basque" and overskirt. Off came the ruffled petticoat
+and little chemise edged with fine lace. And Miranda stood in shapeless,
+kid-bodied ugliness, which stage of evolution the doll of her day had
+reached.
+
+But there was something more. Around her neck she wore a ribbon; on the
+ribbon was a cardboard medal; and on the medal a childish hand had
+scratched the legend,--
+
+_Miranda Terry._
+If lost, please return her to her mother,
+_Angelina Terry_,
+87 Overlook Terrace.
+
+It was such a card as Miss Terry herself had worn in the days when her
+mother had first let her and Tom go out on the street without a nurse.
+
+Mary stared hard at the bit of cardboard. 87 Overlook Terrace! Yes, that
+was where she had found the doll. She remembered now seeing the name on a
+street corner. _Miranda;_ what a pretty name for a doll! _Angelina Terry;_
+so that was the name of the little girl who had lost Miranda. Angelina
+must be feeling very sorry now. Perhaps she was crying herself to sleep,
+for it was growing late.
+
+Her two girl cousins came romping into the bedroom. They had been having a
+hilarious evening.
+
+"Hello, Mary!" they cried. "We heard about your great find!"--"Playing with
+your old doll, are you? Goin' to hang up her stockin' and see if Santa
+Claus will fill it?"--"Huh! Santa Claus won't come to _this_ house, I
+guess!"
+
+Mary had almost forgotten that it was Christmas Eve. There had been nothing
+in the house to remind her. Perhaps Angelina Terry had hung up a stocking
+for Miranda at 87 Overlook Terrace. But there would be no Miranda to see it
+the next morning.
+
+Her cousins teased her for some time, while they undressed, and Mary grew
+sulky. She sat in her corner and answered them shortly. But presently the
+room was quiet, for the girls slept easily. Then Mary crept into her little
+cot with the doll in her arms. She loved Miranda so much that she would
+never part with her, no indeed; not even though she now knew where Miranda
+belonged. 87 Overlook Terrace! The figures danced before her eyes
+maliciously. She wished she could forget them. And the thought of Angelina
+Terry kept coming to her. Poor Angelina!
+
+"She ain't 'poor Angelina,'" argued Mary to herself. "She's _rich_
+Angelina. Doesn't she live in a big house in the swell part of the city? I
+s'pose she has hundreds of dolls, much handsomer than Miranda, and lots of
+other toys. I guess she won't miss this one queer old doll. I guess she'd
+let me keep it if she knew I hadn't any of my own. I guess it ought to be
+my doll. Anyway, I'm going to keep her. I don't believe Angelina loves
+Miranda so much as I do."
+
+She laid her cheek against the doll's cold waxen one and presently fell
+asleep.
+
+But she slept uneasily. In the middle of the night she awoke and lay for
+hours tossing and unhappy in the stuffy little room. The clock struck one,
+two, three. At last she gave a great sigh, and cuddling Miranda in her arms
+turned over, with peace in her heart.
+
+"I will play you are mine, my very own dollie, for just this one night,"
+she whispered in Miranda's ear. "To-morrow will be Christmas Day, and I
+will take you back to your little mother, Angelina Terry. I can't do a mean
+thing at Christmas time,--not even for you, dear Miranda."
+
+Thereupon she fell into a peaceful sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE ANGEL AGAIN
+
+
+"Will she bring it back?" asked Miss Terry eagerly, when once more she
+found herself under the gaze of the Christmas Angel. He nodded brightly.
+
+"To-morrow morning you will see," he said. "It will prove that all I have
+shown you is really true."
+
+"A pretty child," said Miss Terry musingly. "A very nice child indeed. I
+believe she looks very much as I used to be myself."
+
+"You see, she is not a thief, after all; not _yet_," said the Angel. "What
+a pity that she must live in that sad home, with such terrible people! A
+sensitive child like her, craving sympathy and affection,--what chance has
+she for happiness? What would you yourself have been in surroundings like
+hers?"
+
+"Yes, she is very like what I was. Of course I shall let her keep the
+doll."
+
+Miss Terry hesitated. The Angel looked at her steadily and his glance
+seemed to read her half-formed thoughts.
+
+"Surely," he said. "It seems to belong to her, does it not? But is this
+all? I wonder if something more does not belong to her."
+
+"What more?" asked Miss Terry shortly.
+
+"A home!" cried the Angel.
+
+Miss Terry groped in her memory for a scornful ejaculation which she had
+once been fond of using, but there was no such word to be found. Instead
+there came to her lips the name, "Mary."
+
+The Angel repeated it softly. "_Mary._ It is a blessed name," he said.
+"Blessed the roof that shelters a Mary in her need."
+
+There was a long silence, in which Miss Terry felt new impulses stirring
+within her; impulses drawing her to the child whose looks recalled her own
+childhood. The Angel regarded her with beaming eyes. After some time he
+said quietly, "Now let us see what became of your last experiment."
+
+Miss Terry started. It seemed as if she had been interrupted in pleasant
+dreaming. "_You_ were the last experiment," she said. "I know what became
+of you. Here you are!"
+
+"Yet more may have happened than you guessed," replied the Angel meaningly.
+"I have tried to show you how often that is the case. Look again."
+
+Without moving from her chair Miss Terry seemed to be looking out on her
+sidewalk, where, so it seemed, she had just laid the pink figure of the
+Angel. She saw the drunken man approach. She heard his coarse laugh; saw
+his brutal movement as he kicked the Christmas token into the street. In
+sick disgust she saw him reel away out of sight. She saw herself run down
+the steps, rescue the image, and bring it into the house. Surely the story
+was finished. What more could there be?
+
+But something bade her vision follow the steps of the wretched man. Down
+the street he reeled, singing a blasphemous song. With a whoop he rounded a
+corner and ran into a happy party which filled sidewalk and street, as it
+hurried in the direction from which he came. Good-naturedly they jostled
+him against the wall, and he grasped a railing to steady himself as they
+swept by. It was the choir on their way to carol in the next street. Before
+them went the cross-bearer, lifting high his simple wooden emblem.
+
+[Illustration: HE GRASPED A RAILING TO STEADY HIMSELF]
+
+The eyes of the drunken man caught sight of this, and wavered. The presence
+of the crowd conveyed no meaning to his dazed brains. But there was
+something in the familiar symbol which held his vision. He looked, and
+crossed himself, remembering the traditions of his childhood. Some of
+the boys were humming as they went the stirring strains of an ancient
+Christmas march known to all nations; a carol which began, some say, as a
+rousing drinking chorus.
+
+The familiar strain touched some chord in the sodden brain. The man gave a
+feeble whinny, trying to follow the melody. He pulled himself together and
+lurched forward in a sudden impulse to join the band of pilgrims. But by
+the time he had taken three steps they had vanished, miraculously, as it
+seemed to him.
+
+"Begorra, they're gone!" he cried. "Who were they? Were they rale folks?
+What was it they was singin'?"
+
+He sank back helplessly on a flight of steps. "_Ve-ni-te a-do-re-mus!_" he
+croaked in a quavering basso. And his tangled mind went through strange
+processes. Suddenly, there came to him in a flash of exaggerated memory the
+figure of the Christmas Angel which not ten minutes earlier he had kicked
+into the street. A pious horror fell upon him.
+
+"Mither o' mercy!" he cried, again crossing himself. "What have I been an'
+done? It was a howly image; an' what did I do to ut? Lemme go back an' find
+ut, an' take ut up out av the street."
+
+Greatly sobered by his fear, he staggered down the block and around the
+corner to the steps of Miss Terry's house.
+
+"This is the place," he mused. "I know ut; here's where the frindly
+lam'post hild me in its arrums. I rimimber there was a dark house forninst
+me. Here's where ut lay on the sidewalk, all pink an' pretty. An' I kicked
+ut into the street! Where is ut now? Where gone? Howly Mither! Here's the
+spot where ut fell, look now! The shape of uts little body and the wings of
+ut in the snow. But 'tis gone intirely!" He rubbed his eyes and crossed
+himself again. "'Tis flown away," he muttered. "'Tis gone back to Hiven to
+tell Mary Mither o' the wicked thing I done this night. Oh, 'tis a miracle
+that's happened! An' oh! The wicked man I am, drunk and disorderly on the
+Howly Eve!"
+
+    "O come, all ye faithful,
+      Joyful and triumphant!"
+
+Once more he heard the familiar strain taken up lustily by many voices.
+
+"Hear all the world singin' on the way to Bethlehem!" he said, and the
+stupor seemed to leave his brain. He no longer staggered.
+
+"I'll run an' join 'em, an' I won't drink another drop this night." He
+looked up at the starry sky. "Maybe the Angel hears me. Maybe he'll help
+me to keep straight to-morrow. It might be my Guardian Angel himsilf that I
+treated so! Saints forgive me!"
+
+With head bowed humbly, but no longer reeling, he moved away towards the
+sound of music.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You were his Guardian Angel," said Miss Terry, when once more she saw the
+figure on the mantel-shelf. And she spoke with reverent gentleness.
+
+The Angel smiled brightly. "The Christmas Spirit is a guardian angel to
+many," he said. "Never again despise me, Angelina. Never again make light
+of my influence."
+
+"Never again," murmured Miss Terry half unconsciously. "I wish it were not
+too late--"
+
+"It is never too late," said the Christmas Angel eagerly, as if he read her
+unspoken thought. "Oh, never too late, Angelina."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE CHRISTMAS CANDLE
+
+
+Suddenly there was a sound,--a dull reverberating sound. It seemed to Miss
+Terry to come from neither north, south, east, nor west, but from a
+different world. Ah! She recognized it now. It was somebody knocking on the
+library door.
+
+Miss Terry gave a long sigh and drew herself up in her chair. "It must be
+Norah just come back," she said to herself. "I had forgotten Norah
+completely. It must be shockingly late. Come in," she called, as she
+glanced at the clock.
+
+She rubbed her eyes and looked again. A few minutes after nine! She had
+thought it must be midnight!
+
+Norah entered to find her mistress staring at the mantel where the clock
+stood. She saw lying beside the clock the pink Angel which had fallen from
+the box as she brought it in,--the box now empty by the fire.
+
+"Law, Miss," she said, "have you burned them all up but him? I'm glad you
+saved him, he's so pretty."
+
+"Norah," said Miss Terry with an effort, "is that clock right?"
+
+"Yes'm," said Norah. "I set it this morning. I came back as soon as I
+could, Miss," she added apologetically.
+
+"It isn't that," answered Miss Terry, drawing her hand across her forehead
+dazedly. "I did not mind your absence. But I thought it must be later."
+
+"Oh, no, I wouldn't stay out any later when you was alone here, Miss," said
+Norah penitently. "I felt ashamed after I had gone. I ought not to have
+left you so,--on Christmas Eve. But oh, Miss! The singing was so beautiful,
+and the houses looked so grand with the candles in the windows. It is like
+a holy night indeed!"
+
+Miss Terry stooped and picked up something from the floor. It was the bit
+of candle-end which had escaped the holocaust.
+
+"Are the candles still lighted, Norah?" she asked, eyeing the bit of wax in
+her hand.
+
+"Yes'm, some of them," answered the maid. "It is getting late, and a good
+many have burned out. But some houses are still as bright as ever."
+
+"Perhaps it is not too late, then," murmured Miss Terry, as if yielding a
+disputed point. "Let us hurry, Norah."
+
+She rose, and going to the mantel-shelf gently took up the figure of the
+Angel, while Norah looked on in amazement.
+
+"Norah," said Miss Terry, with an eagerness which made her voice tremble,
+"I want you to hang the Christmas Angel in the window there. I too have a
+fancy to burn a candle to-night. If it is not too late I'd like to have a
+little share in the Christmas spirit."
+
+Norah's eyes lighted. "Oh, yes'm," she said. "I'll hang it right away. And
+I'll find an empty spool to hold the candle."
+
+She bustled briskly about, and presently in the window appeared a little
+device unlike any other in the block. Against the darkness within, the
+figure of the Angel with arms outstretched towards the street shone in a
+soft light from the flame of a single tiny candle such as blossom on
+Christmas trees.
+
+It caught the attention of many home-goers, who said, smiling, "How simple!
+How pretty! How quaint! It is a type of the Christmas spirit which is
+abroad to-night. You can feel it everywhere, blessing the city."
+
+For some minutes before the candle was lighted, a man muffled in a heavy
+overcoat had been standing in a doorway opposite Miss Terry's house. He was
+tall and grizzled and his face was sad. He stared up at the gloomy windows,
+the only oblongs of blackness in the illuminated block, and he shivered,
+shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"The same as ever!" he said to himself. "I might have known she would never
+change. Any one else, on Christmas Eve, after the letter I wrote her, would
+have softened a little. But I might have known. She is hard as nails! Of
+course, it was my fault in the first place to leave her as I did. But when
+I acknowledged it, and when I wrote that letter on Christmas Eve, I thought
+Angelina might feel differently." He looked at his watch. "Nearly half-past
+nine," he muttered. "I may as well go home. She said she wanted to be let
+alone; that Christmas meant nothing to her. I don't dare to call,--on my
+only sister! I suppose she is there all alone, and here I am all alone,
+too. What a pity! If I saw the least sign--"
+
+Just then there was the spark of a match against the darkness framed in by
+the window opposite. A hand and arm shone in the flicker of light across
+the upper sash. A tiny spark, tremulous at first, like a bird alighting on
+a frail branch, paused, steadied, and became fixed. In the light of a
+small taper the man caught a glimpse of a pale, long face in a frame of
+silver hair. It faded into the background. But above the candle he now saw,
+with arms outstretched as it seemed toward himself, a pink little angel
+with gauzy wings.
+
+The man's heart gave a leap. Sudden memories thronged his brain, making him
+almost dizzy. At last they formulated into one smothered cry. "The
+Christmas Angel! It is the very same pink Angel that Angelina and I used to
+hang on our Christmas tree!"
+
+In three great leaps, like a schoolboy, he crossed the street and ran up
+the steps of Number 87. The Christmas Angel seemed to smile with ineffable
+sweetness as he gave the bell a vigorous pull.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+TOM
+
+
+Miss Terry was leaning on the mantel-shelf looking into the fire, when the
+bell pealed furiously. She started and turned pale.
+
+"Lord 'a' mercy!" ejaculated Norah, who was still admiring the effect of
+the window-decoration. "What's that? Who can be calling here to-night,
+making such a noise?"
+
+"Go to the door, Norah," said Miss Terry with a strange note in her voice.
+"It may be some one to see me. It is not too late."
+
+"Yes'm," said Norah, obedient but bewildered.
+
+Presently the library door opened and a figure strode in; a tall,
+broad-shouldered man in a fur overcoat. For a moment he stood just inside
+the door, hesitating. Miss Terry took two steps forward from the
+fire-place.
+
+"Tom!" she said faintly. "You came,--after all!"
+
+"After all, Angelina," he said. "Yes, because I saw _that_," he waved his
+hand toward the window. "That gave me courage to come in. It is our
+Christmas Angel. I remember all about it. Does it mean anything, Angelina?"
+
+Miss Terry held out a moment longer. Then she faltered forward. "O Tom!"
+she sobbed, as she felt his brotherly, strong arms about her. "O Tom! And
+so he has brought you back to me, and me to you!"
+
+"He? Angelina girl, who?" He smoothed her silver hair with rough, kind
+fingers.
+
+"Why, the Christmas Angel; our Guardian Angel, Tom. All these years I kept
+him in the play box, and I was going to burn him up. But I couldn't do it,
+Tom. How wonderful it is!"
+
+They sat down before the fire and she began to tell him the whole story.
+But she interrupted herself to send for Norah, who came to her, mystified
+and half scandalized by the greeting which she had seen those two oldsters
+exchange.
+
+"This is my brother Tom, Norah, who has come back," she said. "I believe it
+is not too late to make some preparation for Christmas Day. The stores will
+still be open. Run out and order things for a grand occasion, Norah. And--O
+Norah!" a sudden remembrance came to her. "If you have time, will you
+please get some toys and pretty things such as a little girl would like; a
+little girl of about ten, with my complexion,--I mean, with yellow hair and
+blue eyes. We may have a little guest to-morrow."
+
+"Yes'm," said Norah, moving like one in a dream.
+
+"A guest?" exclaimed Tom. And Miss Terry told him about Mary.
+
+"I love little girls," said Tom, "especially little girls with yellow hair
+and blue eyes, such as you used to have, Angelina."
+
+"You will like Mary, then," said Miss Terry, with a pretty pink flush of
+pleasure in her cheeks.
+
+"I shall like her, _if_ she comes," amended Tom, who, man-like, received
+with reservations the account of a vision vouchsafed not unto him.
+
+"She will come," said Miss Terry with her old positiveness, glancing
+towards the window where the Christmas Angel hung.
+
+Then arose the sound of singing outside the house. The passing choristers
+had spied the quaint window, now the only one in the street which remained
+lighted:--
+
+    "When Christ was born of Mary free,
+    In Bethlehem, in that fair citye,
+    Angels sang with mirth and glee,
+      _In Excelsis Gloria!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CHRISTMAS DAY
+
+
+And Mary came. The brother and sister were at breakfast,--the happiest
+which either of them had known for years,--when there came a timid pull at
+the front-door bell. Miss Angelina laid down her knife and fork and looked
+across the table at Tom.
+
+"She has come. Mary has come," she said. "Norah, if it is a little girl
+with a package under her arm, bring her in here."
+
+"Yes'm!" gasped Norah, who believed she was living in a dream where
+everything was topsy-turvy. When had a child entered Miss Terry's
+dining-room!
+
+Norah disappeared and presently returned ushering in a little girl of ten,
+with blue eyes and yellow hair. Under her arm she carried a white-paper
+package, very badly wrapped.
+
+Miss Terry exchanged with her brother a glance which said, "I told you so!"
+
+The child seemed bashful and afraid to speak; no wonder!
+
+Tom's kind heart yearned to her. "Good morning! Wish you a merry
+Christmas, Mary!" he said smiling.
+
+The child gave a start. "Why, how did you know my name?" she cried.
+
+Tom looked confused. How indeed did he know? But Miss Angelina, with a
+readiness that surprised herself, came to his rescue.
+
+"We were talking of a little girl named Mary," she said. "And you look just
+like her. What did you come for, dear?"
+
+The little girl hung her head and turned crimson.
+
+"I--I came to see Angelina Terry," she whispered. "I--I've got a doll that
+belongs to her."
+
+There was a pause, then Miss Terry said, "Well, go on."
+
+"I--I found her on the steps of this house last night, and I ought to
+have brought her right here then. But I didn't. I took her home. I hope
+Angelina was not very unhappy last night."
+
+Miss Terry smiled upon Tom, who gave a kind, low laugh.
+
+"No," said Miss Terry. "Angelina did not worry about her lost doll. She was
+thinking about something else,--the nicest Christmas present that ever
+anybody had. But you were a good girl to bring back the doll."
+
+"No, I'm not a good girl," said Mary, and her voice trembled. "I was a
+wicked girl. I meant to keep Miranda for myself, because I thought she
+would be a lovely big doll. And when I found she was old and homely,
+somehow I still wanted to keep her. But it was stealing, and I couldn't.
+Please, will you give her to Angelina, and tell her I am so sorry?" She
+took Miranda out of the wrapping and held her toward Miss Terry without
+looking at the doll. It was as if she were afraid of being tempted once
+more.
+
+[Illustration: MARY RETURNS THE DOLL]
+
+Miss Terry did not take the doll.
+
+"I am Angelina," she said. "The doll was mine."
+
+"You! Angelina!" the child's face was full of bewilderment. Mechanically
+she drew Miranda to her and clasped her close.
+
+"Yes, I am Angelina, and that was my doll Miranda," said Miss Terry gently.
+"Thank you for returning her. But Mary,--your name is Mary?" The child
+nodded.--"Suppose I wanted you to keep her for me, what would you say?"
+
+Mary's eyes still dwelt upon Miss Terry with a puzzled look. This
+gray-haired Angelina was so different from the one she had pictured. She
+did not answer the question. Miss Terry drew the child to a chair beside
+her.
+
+"Tell me all about yourself, Mary," she said.
+
+After some coaxing and prompting from what they already guessed, Mary told
+the story of her sad little life.
+
+She was an orphan recently left to the care of her uncle and aunt, who had
+received her grudgingly. They were her sole relatives; and the shame of
+their degraded lives was plain through the outlines of the vague picture
+which Mary sketched of them.
+
+"You do not love them, Mary?" asked Miss Terry kindly.
+
+"No," answered the child. "They always speak crossly to me. When they have
+been drinking they beat me."
+
+Tom rose from the table with a muttered word and began to pace the floor.
+His blue eyes were full of tears.
+
+"Mary," said Miss Terry, "will the people at home be worried if you do not
+come back to dinner?"
+
+Mary shook her head wonderingly. "No," she said. "They will not care. I am
+often away on holidays. I go to the Museums."
+
+"Then I want you to stay with us to-day," said Miss Terry. "We are going
+to have a Christmas celebration, and we need you for a guest. Will you
+stay, you and Miranda?"
+
+Mary looked down at the doll in her arms, and up at the two kind faces bent
+toward her. "Yes," she said impulsively, "I will stay. How good you are! I
+don't want to go home."
+
+"Don't go home!" burst out Tom. "Stay with us always and be our little
+girl."
+
+Mary looked from one to the other, half frightened at the new idea. Miss
+Terry bent and pecked at her cheek, with a thrill at the new sensation.
+
+"Yes, we mean it," she said, and her voice was almost sweet. "We believe
+that the Christmas Angel has brought you to us, Mary. You have the
+Christmas name. But you seem to us like the little girl we both knew best,
+little Angelina with blue eyes and yellow hair, who was Miranda's mother.
+Will you stay with us, Mary Angelina? Would you like to stay?"
+
+Mary looked up with a wistful smile. "You are so good!" she said again. "I
+wish I could stay. But Uncle and Aunt are so--I am afraid of what they
+might do to us all. If they thought you wanted me, they would not let me
+go."
+
+"I will fix Uncle and Aunt," said Tom, going for his coat. "Leave them to
+me. I know an argument that settles uncles and aunts of that sort. You need
+not go back to their house, I promise you, Mary, my dear."
+
+Mary gave a great sigh of relief. "Oh, I am so glad!" she said. "It was
+such a wicked house. And here it is so good!"
+
+"Good!" Miss Terry echoed the word with a sigh. "Come with me, Mary," she
+said.
+
+She led her little guest through the hall to the library, where a great
+fire was blazing, with sundry mysterious packages in white paper piled on
+the table beside it. But Miss Terry did not stop at the fire-place. She
+drew Mary to the window which looked out on the sidewalk. Above the lower
+sash Mary saw the remains of a burned-out Christmas candle; and over it
+hung a pink papier-mâché Angel stretching out open arms towards her.
+
+"This is the Christmas Angel, Mary," said Miss Terry. "He is as old as
+Miranda--"
+
+"He is as old as Christmas," interrupted Tom, looking in from the hall.
+
+"When we were children, Tom and I, we hung him on our Christmas tree," went
+on Miss Terry. "We think he brought you to us. We believe he has changed
+the world for us,--has brought us peace, good-will, and happiness. He is
+going to be the guardian angel of our house. You must love him, Mary."
+
+"How beautiful he is!" said Mary reverently. "His face shines like the
+Baby's that I saw once in the Church. Oh, Miss Angelina! He is like the
+Christ-Child himself!"
+
+"Call me Aunt Angelina," said Miss Terry with a quick breath.
+
+"Aunt Angelina," cried the child, throwing her arms about Miss Terry's
+neck.
+
+Tom came and put his great furry coat-sleeves about them both. "And Uncle
+Tom," he said.
+
+"Dear Uncle Tom!" whispered the child shyly.
+
+There were tears in the eyes of all three.
+
+"Now we shall live happy ever after," said Tom.
+
+And the Christmas Angel beamed upon them.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Christmas Angel, by Abbie Farwell Brown
+
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