With a swift kiss she was gone and, meeting the Damanarkist, who was waiting outside the door, they went down the three flights of steps and out into the street. The wind was biting, and, turning up the collar of her coat, Carmencita put her hands in her pockets and made effort to walk rapidly through the thick snow into which her feet sank with each step. For some minutes conversation was impossible. Heads ducked to keep out of their faces the fast-falling flakes, they trudged along in silence until within a few doors of Mother McNeil's house, and then Carmencita looked up.

"Do—do you ever pray, Mr. Leimberg—pray hard, I mean?"

"Pray!" The Damanarkist drew in his breath and laughed with smothered scorn. "Pray! Why should I pray? I cut out prayer when I was a kid. No, I don't pray."

"It's a great comfort, praying is." Carmencita's hand was taken out of her pocket and slipped through the arm of her disillusioned friend. "Sometimes you're just bound to pray. It's like breathing—you can't help it. It—it just rises up. I prayed yesterday for—for something, and it pretty near happened, but—"

"And you think your praying helped to make it happen!" Mr. Leimberg drew Carmencita's hand farther through his arm, and his lips twisted in contemptuous pity. "You think there is a magician up—oh, somewhere, who makes things happen, do you? Think—"

"Yes." Carmencita's feet skipped in spite of the clogging snow. "I think that somewhere there is Somebody who knows about everything, but I don't think He means us to ask for anything we want just because we want it and don't do a lick to get it. I've been praying for months and months about my temper and stamping my foot when I get mad, and if I remember in time and hold down the up-comings my prayers are always answered; but when I let go and forget—" Carmencita whistled a long, low, significant note. "I guess then I don't want to be answered. I want to smash something. But I didn't pray yesterday about tempers and stamping. It was pretty near a miracle that I asked for, though I said I wasn't asking for miracles or—"

"All people who pray ask for miracles. Since the days when men feared floods and famines and pestilence and evil spirits they have cried out for protection and propitiated what to them were gods." The Damanarkist spit upon the ground as if to spew contempt of pretense and cupidity. "I've no patience with it. If there is a God, He knows the cursed struggle life is with most of us; and if there isn't, prayer is but a waste of time."

Carmencita lifted her eyes and for a moment looked in the dark, thin face, embittered by the losing battle of life, as if she had not heard aright, then she laughed softly.

"If I didn't know you, dear Mr. Damanarkist, I'd think you really meant it—what you said. And you don't. I don't guess there's anybody in all the world who doesn't pray sometimes. Something in you does it by itself, and you can't keep it back. You just wait until you feel all lost and lonely and afraid, or so glad you are ready to sing out loud, then you'll do it—inside, if you don't speak out. If I prayed harder to have more sense and not talk so much, and not say what I think about people, and not hate my ugly clothes so, and despise the smell of onions and cabbage and soap-suds, I might get more answers, but you can't get answers just by praying. You've got to work like the mischief, and be a regular policeman over yourself and nab the bad things the minute they poke their heads out. If I'd prayed differently yesterday I wouldn't have been looking for—for somebody all to-day, and be a jumping-jack to-night for fear I won't find him. Did—did you ever have a sweetheart, Mr. Damanarkist?" Before answer could be made Mother McNeil's house was reached, and with steps that were leaps Carmencita was at the door, and a moment later inside. Finding that Miss Frances had returned, she called to Mr. Leimberg to come for her on his way back from the station library where he was to get his book, and breathlessly she ran to Miss Barbour's door and knocked violently upon it.

To the "come in" she entered, eyes big and shining, and cheeks stung into color by the bitter wind; and with a rush forward the hands of her adored friend were caught and held with a tight and nervous grip.

"Miss Frances! Miss Frances!"

Two arms were flung around Miss Barbour's waist, and for a moment the curly brown head was buried on her breast and words refused to come; instead came breathing short and quick; then Carmencita looked up.

"What—oh, what is his name, Miss Frances? He was found and now is lost, and I promised—I promised I'd get you for him!"

Frances Barbour lifted the excited little face and kissed it. "What's the matter, Carmencita? You look as if you'd seen a ghost, and you're talking as if—"

"I'm crazy—I'm not. And there isn't any time to lose. He said he must find you before Christmas. There isn't a soul to make Christmas for him, and he hasn't anybody to buy things for, and he's as lonely as a—a desert person, and he doesn't want any one but you. Oh, Miss Frances, what is his name?"

Frances Barbour leaned back in the chair in which she had taken her seat, and her face whitened. "What are you talking about, and who is—"

"I'm talking about—Him." On her knees Carmencita crouched against her friend's chair, and her long, slender fingers intertwined with those which had suddenly grown nerveless. "I'm talking about your sweetheart, Miss Frances. I found him for you, and then I lost him. I'll tell you how it happened after I know all of his name and—If you had seen his face when I told him I knew you and knew where you lived you'd hurry, you'd—"

"If he wishes to see me, why doesn't he—I mean—" Sudden color surged into the face turned from the child's eager eyes. "What are we talking about, Carmencita? There is evidently some mistake."

"There is. An awful one. It's three years old. And we're talking about the gentleman Father and I met yesterday and lost last night. You're his sweetheart, and he wants you for Christmas and for ever after, and he may be dead by to-morrow if he doesn't find you. He came to our house, and I wrote you a note to come, too, and when you didn't do it he looked as if he'd been hit in the face and couldn't breathe good, and he stumbled down the steps like a blind man, and we'd forgot to tell him our name, and he didn't know the number of our house, and—" She paused for breath and brushed back the curls from her face. "I know he's been looking all day. Where does he live, Miss Frances, and what is his name?"

"If you will tell me of whom you are talking I will tell you whether or not I know him. Until you do—"

"I told you I didn't remember any of his name but the Van part. Don't you know the name of the person you love best on earth? It's his name I want."

Frances Barbour got up and walked over to the bureau and opened its top drawer. "You are asking questions that in any one else I would not permit, Carmencita. I am sure you do not mean to be—"

"I don't mean anything but that I want to know all of Mr. Van's name, and if you don't tell me you are not a Christian!"

With a change of expression Carmencita sprang to her feet and, hands clasped behind her back, she stood erect, her eyes blazing with indignation. "If you don't tell him where you are, don't let him come, I'll think it's all just make-believe and put on, your coming and doing for people you don't really and truly know, and doing nothing for those you do, and letting the ones you love best be lonely and miserable and having Christmas all by themselves when they're starving hungry for you. What is his name?" Carmencita's voice was high and shrill, and her foot was stamped vehemently. "What is his name?"

"Stephen Van Landing."

Face to face, Frances Barbour and Carmencita looked into each other's eyes, then with a leap Carmencita was out of the room and down the steps and at the telephone. With hands that trembled she turned the pages of the book she was holding upside down, then with disgust at her stupidity she righted it and ran her finger down the long line of V's. Finding at last the name she wanted, she called the number, then closed her eyes and prayed fervently, feverishly, and half-aloud the words came jerkily:

"O God, please let him be home, and let him get down here quick before Miss Frances goes out. She and Mother McNeil are going somewhere and won't be back until eleven, and that would be too late for him to come, and—Hello!" The receiver was jammed closer to her ear. "Is that Mr. Van Landing's house? Is he home? He—he—isn't home!" The words came in a little wail. "Oh, he must be home! Are you sure—sure? Where can I get him? Where is he? You don't know—hasn't been at the office all day and hasn't telephoned? He's looking—I mean I guess he's, trying to find somebody. Who is this talking? It's—it's a friend of his, and tell him the minute he comes in to call up Pelham 4293 and ask for Miss Frances Barbour, who wants to talk to him. And listen. Tell him if she's out to come to 14 Custer Street, to Mother McNeil's, and wait until she gets home. Write it down. Got it? Yes, that's it. Welcome. Good-by."

The receiver was hung upon its hook, and for a moment Carmencita stared at the wall; then her face sobered. The strain and tension of the day gave way, and the high hopes of the night before went out as at the snuffing of a candle. Presently she nodded into space.

"I stamped my foot at Miss Frances. Stamped my foot! And I got mad, and was impertinent, and talked like a gutter girl to a sure-enough lady. Talked like—"

Her teeth came down on her lips to stop their sudden quivering, and the picture on the wall grew blurred and indistinct.

"There isn't any use in praying." Two big tears rolled down her cheeks and fell upon her hands. "I might as well give up."



CHAPTER X

For a half-moment after Carmencita left the room Frances Barbour stood in the middle of the floor and stared at the door, still open, then went over and closed it. Coming back to the table at which she had been writing, she sat down and took up her pen and made large circles on the sheet of paper before her. Slowly the color in her face cooled and left it white.

Carmencita was by nature cyclonic. Her buoyancy and bubbling spirits, her enthusiasms and intensities, were well understood, but how could she possibly know Stephen Van Landing? All day he had been strangely on her mind, always he was in her heart, but thought of him was forced to be subconscious, for none other was allowed. Of late, however, crowd it back as she would, a haunting sense of his presence had been with her, and under the busy and absorbed air with which she had gone about the day's demands there had been sharp surge of unpermitted memories of which she was impatient and ashamed.

Also there had been disquieting questions, questions to which she had long refused to listen, and in the crush and crowd they had pursued her, peered at her in unexpected places, and faced her in the quiet of her room, and from them she was making effort to escape when Carmencita burst in upon her. The latter was too excited, too full of some new adventure, to talk clearly or coherently. Always Carmencita was adventuring, but what could she mean by demanding to know the name of her sweetheart, and by saying she had found him and then lost him? And why had she, Frances Barbour, told her as obediently as if their positions were reversed and she the child instead of Carmencita?

Elbow on the table and chin in the palm of her hand, she tapped the desk-pad with her pen and made small dots in the large circles she had drawn on the paper, and slowly she wrote a name upon it.

What could Stephen Van Landing be doing in this part of the town? He was one of the city's successful men, but he did not know his city. Disagreeable sights and sounds had by him been hitherto avoided, and in this section they were chiefly what was found. Why should he have come to it? That he was selfish and absorbed in his own affairs, that he was conventional and tradition—trained, was as true to-day, perhaps, as when she had told him so three years ago, but had they taught him nothing, these three years that were past? Did he still think, still believe—

With a restless movement she turned in her chair, and her hands twisted in her lap. Was she not still as stubborn as of old, still as proud and impatient of restraint where her sense of freedom and independence of action were in question, still as self-willed? And was it true, what Carmencita had said—was she giving herself to others and refusing herself to the only one who had the right to claim her, the royal right of love?

But how did she know he still needed her, wanted her? When she had returned to her own city after long absence she had told of her present place of residence to but few of her old friends. Her own sorrow, her own sudden facing of the inevitable and unescapable, had brought her sharply to a realization of how little she was doing with the time that was hers, and she had been honest and sincere when she had come to Mother McNeil's and asked to be shown the side of life she had hitherto known but little—the sordid, sinful, struggling side in which children especially had so small a chance. In these years of absence he had made no sign. Even if it were true, what Carmencita had said, that he—that is, a man named Van Something—was looking for her, until he found her she could not tell him where she was.

She had not wished her friends to know. Settlements and society were as oil and water, and for the present the work she had undertaken needed all her time and thought. If only people knew, if only people understood, the things that she now knew and had come to understand, the inequalities and injustices of life would no longer sting and darken and embitter as they stung and darkened and embittered now, and if she and Stephen could work together—

He was living in the same place, his offices were in the same place, and he worked relentlessly, she was told. Although he did not know she was in the city, she knew much of him, knew of his practical withdrawal from the old life, knew of a certain cynicism that was becoming settled; and a thousand times she had blamed herself for the unhappiness that was his as well as hers. She loved her work, would always be glad that she had lived among the people who were so singularly like those other people who thought themselves so different, but if he still needed her, wanted her, was it not her duty—

With an impatient movement of her hands she got up and went over to the window. There was no duty about it. It was love that called him to her. She should not have let Carmencita go without finding from her how it happened that she had met Stephen Van Landing on Custer Street. She must go to Carmencita and ask her. If he were really looking for her they might spend Christmas together. The blood surged hotly to her face, and the beating of her heart made her hands unsteady. If together—

A noise behind made her turn. Hand on the door-knob, Carmencita was standing in the hall, her head inside the room. All glow was gone, and hope and excitement had yielded to dejection and despair.

"I just came to beg your pardon for—for stamping my foot, and I'm sorry I said what I did." The big blue eyes looked down on the floor and one foot twisted around the other. "It isn't any use to forgive me. I'm not worth forgiving. I'm not worth—"

The door was slammed violently, and before Miss Barbour could reach the hall Carmencita was down the steps and out into the street, where the Damanarkist was waiting.



CHAPTER XI

Late into the night Stephen Van Landing kept up his hurried walking. Again and again he had stopped and made inquiries of policemen, of children, of men and women, but no one knew that of which he asked. A blind man who played the harp, a child named Carmencita, a boy called Noodles, a settlement house, he supposed, over which Mother Somebody presided—these were all he had to go on. To ask concerning Miss Barbour was impossible. He could not bring himself to call her name. He would have to go to headquarters for help. To-morrow would be Christmas eve. He would not spend Christmas alone—or in the usual way.

"Say, mister, don't you wish you was a boy again? Get out the way!"

With a push the boy swept by him, pulling on a self-constructed sleigh a still smaller boy, and behind the two swarmed a bunch of yelling youngsters who, as they passed, pelted him with snow. One of them stopped to tie the string of his shoe, and, looking down, Van Landing saw—Noodles.

With a swift movement he reached down to grab him, but, thinking it was a cop, the boy was up and gone with a flash and in half a moment was out of sight. As swiftly as the boy Van Landing ran down the street and turned the corner he had seen the boy turn. His heart was beating thickly, his breath came unevenly, and the snow was blinding, but there was no thought of stopping. He bumped into a man coming toward him, and two hats flew in the air and on the pavement, but he went on. The hat did not matter, only Noodles mattered, and Noodles could no longer be seen. Down the street, around first one corner and then another, he kept on in fierce pursuit for some moments; then, finding breathing difficult, he paused and leaned against the step railing of a high porch, to better get his bearings. Disappointment and fury were overmastering him. It was impossible and absurd to have within one's grasp what one had been looking for all day and part of two nights, and have it slip away like that.

"Come on. No use—that—" The policeman's voice was surly. "If you'll walk quiet I won't ring up. If you don't you'll get a free ride. Come on."

"Come on?" Van Landing put his hand to his head. His hat was gone. He looked down at his feet. They were soaking wet. His overcoat was glazed with a coating of fine particles of ice, and his hands were trembling. He had eaten practically nothing since his lunch of Tuesday, had walked many miles, and slept but a few hours after a night of anxious searching, and suddenly he felt faint and sick.

"Come on?" he repeated. "Come where?"

"Where you belong." The policeman's grasp was steadying. "Hurry up. I can't wait here all night."

"Neither can I." Van Landing took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. "I wish you'd get my hat." The crowd was pressing closer. He was losing time and must get away. Besides, he could not trust himself. The man's manner was insolent, and he was afraid he would kick him. Instead he slipped some money in his hand.

"Mistake, my friend. You'd have your trouble for nothing if you took me in. There's no charge save running. I want to find a boy who passed me just now. Name is Noodles. Know him?"

For a moment the cop hesitated. The man's voice, dress, manner, were not the sort seen in this section, and the bill slipped in his hand had a yellow tinge—still—

"I've dropped my hat. Get it, will you?" Van Landing threw some change in the still gathering crowd, and as they scampered for it he turned to the policeman, then caught hold of the railing. A hateful faintness was coming over him again. On the edge of the crowd a girl with a middle-aged woman had stopped, and the girl was making her way toward him.

"What is it, Mr. Cronklin? Not one of our boys?" The clear voice reached him as if at his side. He steadied himself, stared, and tried to speak.

"Frances," he said, and held out his hands. "You've made me walk so far, Frances, and Christmas is—"

In the snow his feet slipped. The cop was such a fool. He had never fainted in his life.

Some one was standing near him. Who was it, and where was he? This wasn't his room. On his elbow, he looked around. Nothing was familiar. It must be a woman's room; he could see photographs and a pin-cushion on the bureau, and flowers were growing on a table near the window. The bed he was in was small and white. His was big and brass. What had happened? Slowly it came to him, and he started to get up, then fell back. The surge of blood receded, and again there was giddiness. Had he lost her? Had she, too, slipped out of his hands because of his confounded fall? It was a durned outrage that he should have fallen. Who was that man with his back to the bed?

The man turned. "All right, are you? That's good!" His pulse was felt with professional fingers, but in the doctor's voice was frank interest. "You were pretty nearly frozen, man. It's well she saw you."

"Where is she?" Van Landing sat up. "Where are my clothes? I must get up."

"I guess not." The doctor laughed, but his tone was as decisive as his act. Van Landing was pushed back on the pillow and the covering pulled up. "Do you mean Miss Barbour?"

"Yes. Where is Miss Barbour?"

The doctor wrote something on a slip of paper. "Down-stairs, waiting to hear how you are. I'll go down and tell her. I'll see you in the morning."

"Where am I? Whose house is this?"

"Your house at present." The doctor laughed again. "It's Mother McNeil's house, but all who need it use it, and you needed it, all right. You struck your head on the bottom step of the porch three doors from here. Had it been an inch nearer the temple—Pretty bad knock-out, as it was, but you'll be all right to-morrow. If you wake up in a couple of hours take another one of these"—a pill was obediently swallowed—"but you're to see no one until I see you again. No talking."

"Sorry, but I must see Miss Barbour." In Van Landing's voice was sharp fear. "Christmas isn't over yet? I haven't missed it, have I? Are you sure she's in this house?"

"Sure. She's getting ready for to-morrow. To-morrow will be the busiest day in the year. It's Christmas eve."

Van Landing slipped down in the bed and his face went deep in the pillows. Reaction was on. A horrible fear that he was going to cry, going to do some abominably childish thing, made him stuff the covering in his mouth and press his feet hard against the foot of the bed. He would not be cheated out of Christmas! He had believed he hated it, thought he wanted to be dead during it, and now if it were over and nothing done—Presently he spoke.

"Will you ask Miss Barbour if I may speak to her in the morning—before she goes out? My name is Van Landing—Stephen Van Landing. I was a friend of hers once."

"One now." The doctor's voice was dryly emphatic. "Lucky she recognized you. Rather startled her, finding an old friend so unexpectedly." Over his spectacles his kind, shrewd eyes looked down on the man in the bed. "I'll see her. Miss Barbour is an exceptional woman, but she's a woman, which means when she knows you are all right she may not have time to see you. At present she's outside your door. That's her knock. Guess she's got the milk."

With breath held, Van Landing listened. Very low were the words spoken, then the door was closed again. His heart was calling to her. The long and empty years in which he had hoped against hope, and yet could make no effort to find her, faded as mist fades before the light that dawns and glows; and to say no word when she was near, to hold hands still that longed to outstretch, to make no sign when he would kneel for pardon at her feet—it was not to be endured. He would not wait; the doctor must let her in!

But it was not the doctor who was at his bed. It was a short, plump woman of more than middle age, with twinkling gray eyes and firm, kind hands and a cheery voice.

"It's the milk, my son," she said, and the steaming glass was held to his lips. "When you've had it you will sleep like a baby. It's warm, are you—and the feet good and hot? Let me feel that water-bag? Bless my soul if it's even lukewarm, and your feet still shivery! It's no wonder, for they were ice itself when they brought you in."

With dexterous fingers the hot-water bag was withdrawn from the foot of the bed and Mother McNeil was out of the room. Back again, she slipped it close to his feet, tucked in the covering, patted the pillows, and, lowering the light, turned to leave the room. At the door she stopped.

"Is there anything you're needing, my son—anything I can do for you?"

For a moment there was silence, broken only by the ticking of a tiny clock on the mantel, then Van Landing spoke.

"Yes." His voice was boyishly low. "Will you ask Miss Barbour if I may see her to-morrow before she goes out? I must see her."

"Of course I will. And you can tell her how it happened that you were right near our door when you fell, and you didn't even know she was in town. Very few of her up-town friends know. There wasn't time for both up-town and down-town, and there were things she wanted to find out. She tells me you are an old friend, and I'm glad you've come across each other again. It pleases some folks to believe in chance, but I get more comfort thinking God has His own way. Good night, Mr. Van Landing. Good dreams—good dreams!"

The door was closed softly, and under the bedclothes Van Landing again buried his face in the pillows, and his lips twitched. Chance—was it chance or was it God? If only God would give him a chance!



CHAPTER XII

He was too tired, too utterly relaxed by warmth and medicine, to think clearly. To-morrow he would find Carmencita, and she should get the things the children wanted. They were very strange, the places and people he had seen to-day. Of course he had known about such places and people, read about them, heard about them, but seeing for one's self was different. There were a lot of bummers among these people he had passed; much of their misery was of their own making (he had made much of his), but the wonder was they were no worse.

Bold, bad faces, cold, pinched, hungry ones, eager, earnest, pathetic and joyous, worn and weary, burdened and care-free, they again passed before him, misty and ill-defined, as though the snow still veiled and made them hazy, and none of them he knew. He wished they would stop passing. He was very tired. They, too, were tired. Would they for ever be passing before him, these people, these little children, he had seen to-day? If they would go away he could think more clearly, could think of Frances. She was here, in the house with him. At first it had seemed strange, but it wasn't strange. It would be strange if she were not here when he needed her, wanted her so. To-morrow would not be too late. One could do a good deal on Christmas eve. Everybody had been busy except himself. He would telephone to-morrow and tell Herrick to close the office and give Miss Davis holiday until after New-Year.

But she had nowhere to go. He had heard her tell Herrick so, and Herrick had nowhere to go, either. Both lived in boarding-houses, he supposed. He had never thought to ask. Herrick was a faithful old plodder—never would be anything else—but he couldn't get on without him. He ought to raise his salary. Why didn't Herrick ask for more money if he wanted it? And then he could get married. Why didn't he get married, anyhow? Once or twice he had seen him talking to Miss Davis about something that evidently wasn't business. She was a pretty little thing and quick as lightning—just the opposite of old Herrick. Wouldn't it be funny if they were in love; not, of course, like—

They had nowhere to go Christmas. If Frances would let them they might come here—no, not here, but at his home, their home. His home was Frances's. It wouldn't be home for him if it weren't for her also. He would ask her. And Carmencita and her blind father, they could come, too. It would be horrible to have a Christmas dinner of sardines or toasted cheese and crackers—or one in a boarding-house. Other people might think it queer that he should have accidentally met Carmencita, and that Carmencita should have mentioned the name of Miss Barbour, and that he should have walked miles and miles—it must have been thousands of miles—trying to find her, and, after all, did not find her. She found him. But it wasn't queer. He had been looking for her ever since—for three years he had been looking for her, and what one looks for long enough one always finds. To-morrow—to-morrow—would —be—Christmas eve.

He opened his eyes slowly. The sun was blinding, and he blinked. Mother McNeil and the doctor were standing at the foot of the bed, and as he rubbed his eyes they laughed.

"It's a merry Christmas you're to have, my son, after all, and it's wanting to be up and after it you are, if I'm a judge of looks." And Van Landing's hand, holding the coverlid close to his neck, was patted understandingly by Mother McNeil. "Last night the doctor was a bit worried about your head—you took your time in coming to—but I didn't believe it was as bad as he feared, and it's well it wasn't, for it's a grand day in which to be living, and you'll need your head. Is it coffee or tea, now, that you like best for breakfast? And an egg and a bit of toast, doctor, I think will taste well. I'll get them." And without answer Mother McNeil was gone.

The doctor sat down, felt his patient's pulse, took his temperature, investigated the cut on the forehead, then got up. "You're all right." His tone was one of gruff relief. "One inch nearer your temple, however—You can get up if you wish. Good day." And he, too, was gone before Van Landing could ask a question or say a word of thanks.

It was bewildering, perplexing, embarrassing, and for a moment he hesitated. Then he got up. He was absurdly shaky, but his head was clear, and in his heart humility that was new and sweet. The day was great, and the sun was shining as on yesterday one would not have dreamed it could ever shine again. Going over to the door, he locked it and hurriedly began to dress. His clothes had a rough, dry appearance that made them hardly recognizable, and to get on his shoes, which evidently had been dried near the furnace, was difficult. In the small mirror over the bureau, as he tied his cravat, his face reflected varying emotions: disgust at his soiled collar, relief that he was up again, and gratitude that made a certain cynicism, of late becoming too well defined, fade into quiet purpose.

Unlocking the door, he went back to the window and looked across at the long row of houses, as alike as shriveled peas in a dry pod, and down on the snow-covered streets. Brilliantly the sun touched here and there a bit of cornice below a dazzling gleaming roof, and threw rays of rainbow light on window-pane and iron rail, outlined or hidden under frozen foam; and the dirt and ugliness of the usual day were lost in the white hush of mystery.

Not for long would there be transforming effect of the storm, however. Already the snow was being shoveled from door-steps and sidewalks, and the laughter of the boys as they worked, the scraping of their shovels, the rumble of wagon-wheels, which were making deep brown ruts in the middle of the street, reached him with the muffled sound of something far away, and, watching, he missed no detail of what was going on below.

"Goodness gracious! I've almost cried myself to death! And she found you—found you!"

Van Landing turned sharply. The door was open, though he had not heard the knock, and with a spring Carmencita was beside him, holding his hands and dancing as if demented with a joy no longer to be held in restraint.

"Oh, Mr. Van, I've almost died for fear I wouldn't find you in time! And you're here at Mother McNeil's, and all yesterday I looked and looked, and I couldn't remember your last name, and neither could Father. And Miss Frances was away until night, and I never prayed so hard and looked so hard in my life! Oh, Mr. Van, if you are a stranger, I love you, and I'm so glad you're found!"

She stopped for breath, and Van Landing, stooping, lifted Carmencita's face and kissed it.

"You are my dear friend, Carmencita." His voice, as his hands, was a bit shaky. "I, too, am very glad—and grateful. Will you ask her to come, ask her to let me see her? I cannot wait any longer."

"You'll have to." Carmencita's eyes were big and blue in sudden seriousness. "The Little Big Sisters have their tree to-night, and she's got a million trillion things to do to-day, and she's gone out. She's awful glad you're better, though. I asked her, and she said she was. And I asked her why she didn't marry you right straight away, or to-morrow if she didn't have time to-day, and—"

"You did what, Carmencita?"

"That. I asked her that. What's the use of wasting time? I told her you'd like a wife for a Christmas gift very much, if she was the wife. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you really and truly rather have her than anything else?"

Van Landing turned and looked out of the window. The child's eyes and earnest, eager face could not be met in the surge of hot blood which swept over him, and his throat grew tight. All his theories and ideas were becoming but confused upheaval in the manipulations of fate, or what you will, that were bringing strange things to pass, and he no longer could think clearly or feel calmly. He must get away before he saw Frances.

"Wouldn't you, Mr. Van?"

In the voice beside him was shy entreaty and appeal, and, hands clasped behind her, Carmencita waited.

"I would." Van Landing made effort to smile, but in his eyes was no smiling. Into them had come sudden purpose. "I shall ask her to marry me to-morrow."

Arms extended to the limit of their length, Carmencita whirled round and round the room, then, breathless, stopped and, taking Van Landing's hand, lifted it to her lips.

"I kiss your hand, my lord, and bring you greetings from your faithful subjects! I read that in a book. I'll be the subject. Isn't it grand and magnificent and glorious?" She stopped. "She hasn't any new clothes. A lady can't get married without new clothes, can she? And she won't have time to get any on Christmas eve. Whether she'll do it or not, you'll have to make her, Mr. Van, or you'll lose her again. You've—got—to—just—make—her!"

Carmencita's long slender forefinger made a jab in Van Landing's direction, and her head nodded with each word uttered. But before he could answer, Mother McNeil, with breakfast on a tray, was in the room and Carmencita was out.

Sitting down beside him, as he asked her to do, Van Landing told her how it happened he was there, told her who he was. Miss Barbour was under her care. She had once been his promised wife. He was trying to find her when he fell, or fainted, or whatever it was, that he might ask her again to marry him. Would she help him?

In puzzled uncertainty Mother McNeil had listened, fine little folds wrinkling her usually smooth forehead, and her keen eyes searching the face before her; then she got up.

"I might have known it would end like this. Well, why not?" Hands on her hips, she smiled in the flushed face looking into hers. Van Landing had risen, and his hands, holding the back of his chair, twitched badly. "The way of love is the way of life. If she will marry you—God bless you, I will say. It's women like Frances the work we're in is needing. But it's women like her that men need, too. She's out, but she asked me to wish you a very happy Christmas."



CHAPTER XIII

"A very happy Christmas!" Van Landing smiled. "How can I have it without—When can I see her, Mother McNeil?"

At the open door Mother McNeil turned. "She has some shopping to do. Yesterday two more families were turned over to us. Sometimes she gets lunch at the Green Tea-pot on Samoset Street. She will be home at four. The children come at eight, and the tree is to be dressed before they get here." A noise made her look around. "Carmencita,—you are out of breath, child! It's never you will learn to walk, I'm fearing!"

Carmencita, who had run down the hall as one pursued, stopped, pulled up her stocking, and made effort to fasten it to its supporter. "Christmas in my legs," she said. "Can't expect feet to walk on Christmas eve. I've got to tell him something, Mother McNeil. Will you excuse me, please, if I tell him by himself?"

Coming inside the room, Carmencita pulled Van Landing close to her and closed the door, and for half a minute paused for breath.

"It was Her. It was Miss Barbour at the telephone, and she says I must meet her at the Green Tea-pot at two o'clock and have lunch with her and tell her about the Barlow babies and old Miss Parker and some others who don't go to Charities for their Christmas—and she says I can help buy the things. Glory! I'm glad I'm living!" She stopped. "I didn't tell her a word about you, but—Have you got a watch?"

Van Landing looked at his watch, then put it back. "I have a watch, but no hat. I lost my hat last night chasing Noodles. It's nine o'clock. I'm going to the Green Tea-pot at two to take lunch also. Want to go with me?"

"I'm not going with you. You are going with me." Carmencita made effort to look tall. "That's what I came to tell you. And you can ask her there. I won't listen. I won't even look, and—"

Van Landing took up his overcoat, hesitated, and then put it on. "I've never had a sure-enough Christmas, Carmencita. Why can't I get those things for the kiddies you spoke of, and save Miss Barbour the trouble? She has so much to do, it isn't fair to put more on her. Then, too—"

"You can have her by yourself after we eat, can't you? Where can you go?"

"I haven't thought yet. Where do you suppose? She ought to rest."

"Rest!" Carmencita's voice was shrilly scornful. "Rest—on Christmas eve. Besides, there isn't a spot to do it in. Every one has bundles in it." Hands clasped, her forehead puckered in fine folds, then she looked up. "Is—is it a nice house you live in? It's all right, isn't it?"

"It is considered so. Why?"

"Because what's the use of waiting until to-morrow to get married? If she'll have you you all could stop in that little church near the Green Tea-pot and the man could marry you, and then she could go on up to your house and rest while you finished your Christmas things, and then you could go for her and bring her down here to help fix the Christmas tree, and to-morrow you could have Christmas at home. Wouldn't it be grand?" Carmencita was on tiptoe, and again her arms were flung in the air. Poised as if for flight, her eyes were on the ceiling. Her voice changed. "The roof of this house leaks. It ought to be fixed."

Van Landing opened the door. "Your plan is an excellent one, Carmencita. I like it immensely, but there's a chance that Miss Barbour may not agree. Women have ways of their own in matters of marriage. I do not even know that she will marry me at all."

"Then she's got mighty little sense, which isn't so, for she's got a lot. She knows what she wants, all right, and if she likes you she likes you, and if she don't, she don't, and she don't make out she does. Did—did you fuss?"

"We didn't fuss." Van Landing smiled slightly. "We didn't agree about certain things."

"Good gracious! You don't want to marry an agree-er, do you? Mrs. Barlow's one. Everything her husband thinks, she thinks, too, and sometimes he can't stand her another minute. Where are you going now?"

"I'm going to telephone for a taxi-cab. Then I'm going home to change my clothes and get a hat, and then I'm going to my office to look after some matters there; then I'm going with you to do some shopping, and then I'm going to the Green Tea-pot to meet Miss Barbour. If you could go with me now it would save time. Can you go?"

"If I can tell Father first. Wait for me, will you?"

Around the corner Carmencita flew, and was back as the taxi-cab stopped at Mother McNeil's door. Getting in, she sat upright and shut her eyes. Van Landing was saying good-by and expressing proper appreciation and mentally making notes of other forms of expression to be made later; and as she waited her breath came in long, delicious gasps through her half-parted lips. Presently she stooped over and pinched her legs.

"My legs," she said, "same ones. And my cheeks and my hair"—the latter was pulled with vigor—"and my feet and my hands—all me, and in a taxi-cab going Christmas shopping and maybe to a marriage, and I didn't know he was living last week! Father says I mustn't speak to people I don't know, but how can you know them if you don't speak? I was born lucky, and I'm so glad I'm living that if I was a rooster I'd crow. Oh, Mr. Van, are you ready?"

The next few hours to Carmencita were the coming true of dreams that had long been denied, and from one thrill to another she passed in a delicious ecstasy which made pinching of some part of her body continually necessary. While Van Landing dressed she waited in his library, wandering in wide-eyed awe and on tiptoe from one part of the room to the other, touching here and there with the tips of her fingers a book or picture or piece of furniture, and presently in front of a footstool she knelt down and closed her eyes.

Quickly, however, she opened them and, with head on the side, looked around and listened. This wasn't a time to be seen. The silence assuring, she again shut her eyes very tight and the palms of her hands, uplifted, were pressed together.

"Please, dear God, I just want to thank you," she began. "It's awful sudden and unexpected having a day like this, and I don't guess to-morrow will be much, not a turkey Christmas or anything like that, but to-day is grand. I'd say more, but some one is coming. Amen." And with a scramble she was on her feet, the stool behind her, as Van Landing came in the room.

The ride to the office through crowded streets was breathlessly thrilling, and during it Carmencita did not speak. At the window of the taxi she pressed her face so closely that the glass had continually to be wiped lest the cloud made by her breath prevent her seeing clearly; and, watching her, Van Landing smiled. What an odd, elfish, wistful little face it was—keen, alert, intelligent, it reflected every emotion that filled her, and her emotions were many. In her long, ill-fitting coat and straw hat, in the worn shoes and darned gloves, she was a study that puzzled and perplexed, and at thought of her future he frowned. What became of them—these children with little chance? Was it to try and learn and help that Frances was living in their midst?

In his office Herrick and Miss Davis were waiting. Work had been pretty well cleared up, and there was little to be done, and as Van Landing saw them the memory of his half-waking, half-dreaming thought concerning them came to him, and furtively he looked from one to the other.

In a chair near the window, hands in her lap and feet on the rounds, Carmencita waited, her eyes missing no detail of the scene about her, and at Miss Davis, who came over to talk to her, she looked with frank admiration. For a moment there was hesitating uncertainty in Van Landing's face; then he turned to Herrick.

"Come into the next room, will you, Herrick? I want to speak to you a minute."

What he was going to say he did not know. Herrick was such a steady old chap, from him radiated such uncomplaining patience, about him was such aloofness concerning his private affairs, that to speak to him on personal matters was difficult. He handed him cigars and lighted one himself.

"I'm going to close the office, Herrick, until after New-Year," he began. "I thought perhaps you might like to go away."

"I would." Herrick, whose cigar was unlighted, smiled slightly. "But I don't think I'll go."

"Why not?"

Herrick hesitated, and his face flushed. He was nearing forty, and his hair was already slightly gray. "There are several reasons," he said, quietly. "Until I am able to be married I do not care to go away. She would be alone, and Christmas alone—"

"Is—is it Miss Davis, Herrick?" Van Landing's voice was strangely shy; then he held out his hand. "You're a lucky man, Herrick. I congratulate you. Why didn't you tell me before; and if you want to get married, why not? What's the use of waiting? The trip's on me. Christmas alone—I forgot to say I've intended for some time to raise your salary. You deserve it, and it was thoughtlessness that made me put it off." He sat down at his desk and took his check-book out of a spring-locked drawer and wrote hastily upon it. "That may help to start things, Herrick, and if there's any other way—"

In Herrick's astonished face the blood pumped deep and red, and as he took the check Van Landing put in his hands his fingers twitched nervously. It was beyond belief that Van Landing should have guessed—and the check! It would mean the furnishing of the little flat they had looked at yesterday and hoped would stay unrented for a few months longer; meant a trip, and a little put aside to add to their slow savings. Now that his sister was married and his brother out of school, he could save more, but with this—He tried to speak, then turned away and walked over to the window.

"Call her in, Herrick, and let's have it settled. Why not get the license to-day and be married to-morrow? Oh, Miss Davis!" He opened the door and beckoned to his stenographer, who was showing Carmencita her typewriter. "Come in, will you? Never mind. We'll come in there."



CHAPTER XIV

Miss Davis, who had risen, stood with one hand on her desk; the other went to her lips. Something was the matter. What was it?

"I hope you won't mind Carmencita knowing." Van Landing drew the child to him. "She is an admirable arranger and will like to help, I'm sure. Miss Davis and Mr. Herrick are going to be married to-morrow, Carmencita, and spend their holiday—wherever they choose. Why, Miss Davis—why, you've never done like this before!"

Miss Davis was again in her chair, and, with arms on her desk and face buried in them, her shoulders were making little twitchy movements. She was trying desperately hard to keep back something that mustn't be heard, and in a flash Carmencita was on her knees beside her.

"Oh, Miss Davis, I don't know you much, but I'm so glad, and of course it's awful exciting to get married without knowing you're going to do it; but you mustn't cry, Miss Davis—you mustn't, really!"

"I'm not crying." Head up, the pretty brown eyes, wet and shining, looked first at Herrick and then at Van Landing, and a handkerchief wiped two quivering lips. "I'm not crying, only—only it's so sudden, and to-morrow is Christmas, and a boarding-house Christmas—" Again the flushed face was buried in her arms and tears came hot and fast—happy, blinding tears.

Moving chairs around that were not in the way, going to the window and back again, locking up what did not require locking, putting on his hat and taking it off without knowing what he was doing, Van Landing, nevertheless, managed in an incredibly short time to accomplish a good many things and to make practical arrangements. Herrick and Miss Davis were to come to his apartment at one o'clock to-morrow and bring the minister. They would be married at once and have dinner immediately after with him—and with a friend or two, perhaps. Carmencita and her father would also be there, and they could leave for a trip as soon as they wished. They must hurry; there was no time to lose—not a minute.

With a few words to the office-boy, the elevator-boy, the janitor, and additional remembrances left with the latter for the charwoman, the watchman, and several others not around, they were out in the street and Carmencita again helped in the cab.

For a moment there was dazed silence, then she turned to Van Landing. "Would you mind sticking this in me?" she asked, and handed him a bent pin. "Is—is it really sure-enough what we've been doing, or am I making up. Stick hard, please—real hard."

Van Landing laughed. "No need for the pin." He threw it away. "You're awake, all right. I've been asleep a long time, and you—have waked me, Carmencita."

For two delicious hours the child led and Van Landing followed. In and out of stores they went with quickness and decision, and soon on the seat and on the floor of the cab boxes and bundles of many shapes and sizes were piled, and then Carmencita said there should be nothing else.

"It's awful wickedness, Mr. Van, to spend so much." Her head nodded vigorously. "The children will go crazy, and so will their mothers, and they'll pop open if they eat some of all the things you've bought for them, and we mustn't get another one. It's been grand, but—You're not drunk, are you, Mr. Van, and don't know what you're doing?"

Her voice trailed off anxiously, and in her eyes came sudden, sober fear.

Again Van Landing laughed. "I think perhaps I am drunk, but not in the way you mean, Carmencita. It's a matter of spirits, however. Something has gone to my head, or perhaps it's my heart. But I know very well what I'm doing. There's one thing more. I forgot to tell you. I have a little friend who has done a good deal for me. I want to get her a present or two—some clothes and things that girls like. Your size, I think, would fit her. I'd like—"

"Is she rich or poor?"

Van Landing hesitated. "She is rich. She has a wonderful imagination and can see all sorts of things that others don't see, and her friends are—"

"Kings and queens, and fairies and imps, and ghosts and devils. I know. I've had friends like that. Does she like pink or blue?"

"I think she likes—blue." Again Van Landing hesitated. Silks and satins might be Carmencita's choice. Silks and satins would not do. "I don't mean she has money, and I believe she'd rather have practical things."

"No, she wouldn't! Girls hate practical things." The long, loose, shabby coat was touched lightly. "This is practical. Couldn't she have one pair of shiny slippers, just one, with buckles on them? Maybe she's as Cinderellary as I am. I'd rather stick my foot out with a diamond-buckle slipper on it than eat. I do when my princess friends call, and they always say: 'Oh, Carmencita, what a charming foot you have!' And that's it. That!" And Carmencita's foot with it's coarse and half-worn shoe was held out at full length. "But we've got to hurry, or we won't be at the Green Tea-pot by two o'clock. Come on."

With amazing discrimination Carmencita made her purchases, and only once or twice did she overstep the limitations of practicality and insist upon a present that could be of little use to its recipient. For the giving of joy the selection of a pair of shining slippers, a blue satin sash, and a string of amber beads were eminently suitable, however, and, watching, Van Landing saw her eyes gleam over the precious possessions she was supposedly buying for some one else, a child of her own age, and he made no objection to the selections made.

"Even if she don't wear them she will have them." And Carmencita drew a long, deep sigh of satisfaction. "It's so nice to know you have got something you can peep at every now and then. It's like eating when you're hungry. Oh, I do hope she'll like them! Is it two, Mr. Van?"

It was ten minutes to two, and, putting Carmencita into the bundle-packed cab, Van Landing ordered the latter to the Green Tea-pot, then, getting in, leaned back, took off his hat, and wiped his forehead. Tension seemed suddenly to relax and his heart for a moment beat thickly; then with a jerk he sat upright. Carmencita was again absorbed in watching the crowds upon the streets, and, when the cab stopped, jumped as if awakened from a dream.

"Are we here already? Oh, my goodness! There she is!"

Miss Barbour was going in the doorway, and as Van Landing saw the straight, slender figure, caught the turn of the head, held in the way that was hers alone, the years that were gone slipped out of memory and she was his again. His—With a swift movement he was out of the cab and on the street and about to follow her when Carmencita touched him on the arm.

"Let me go first. She doesn't know you're coming. We'll get a table near the door."

The crowd separated them, but through it Carmencita wriggled her way quickly and disappeared. Waiting, Van Landing saw her rush up to Miss Barbour, then slip in a chair at a table whose occupants were leaving, and motion Frances to do the same. As the tired little waitress, after taking off the soiled cloth and putting on a fresh one, went away for necessary equipment Van Landing opened the door and walked in and to the table and held out his hand.

"You would not let me thank you this morning. May I thank you now for—"



"Finding him?" Carmencita leaned halfway over the table, and her big blue eyes looked anxiously at first one and then the other. "He was looking for you, Miss Frances; he'd been looking all day and all night because he'd just heard you were somewhere down here, and he's come to have lunch with us, and—Oh, it's Christmas, Miss Frances, and please tell him—say something, do something! He's been waiting three years, and he can't wait another minute. Gracious! that smells good!"

The savory dish that passed caused a turn in Carmencita's head, and Frances Barbour, looking into the eyes that were looking into hers, held out her hand. At sight of Van Landing her face had colored richly, then the color had left it, leaving it white, and in her eyes was that he had never seen before.

"There is nothing for which to thank me." Her voice with its freshness and sweetness stirred as of old, but it was low. She smiled slightly. "I am very glad you are all right this morning. I did not know you knew our part of the town." Her hand was laid on Carmencita's.

"I didn't until I met your little friend. I had never been in it before. I know it now very well."

"And he was so fighting mad because he couldn't see you when I sent the note that he went out, not knowing where he was or how to get back, and when his senses came on again and he tried to find out he couldn't find, and he walked 'most all night and was lost like people in a desert who go round and round. And the next day he walked all day long and 'most froze, and he'd passed Mother McNeil's house a dozen times and didn't know it; and he was chasing Noodles and just leaning against that railing when the cop came and you came. Oh, Miss Frances, it's Christmas! Won't you please make up and—When are we going to eat?"

Miss Barbour's hand closed over Carmencita's twisting ones, and into her face again sprang color; then she laughed. "We are very hungry, Mr. Van Landing. Would you mind sitting down so we can have lunch?"

An hour later Carmencita leaned back in her chair, hands in her lap and eyes closed. Presently one hand went out. "Don't ask me anything for a minute, will you? I've got to think about something. When you're ready to go let me know."

Through the meal Carmencita's flow of words and flow of spirits had saved the silences that fell, in spite of effort, between Van Landing and Miss Barbour, and under the quiet poise so characteristic of her he had seen her breath come unsteadily. Could he make her care for him again? With eyes no longer guarded he looked at her, leaned forward.

"From here," he said, "where are you going?"

"Home. I mean to Mother McNeil's. Carmencita says you and she have done my shopping." She smiled slightly and lifted a glass of water to her lips. "The tree is to be dressed this afternoon, and to-night the children come."

"And I—when can I come?"

"You?" She glanced at Carmencita, who was now sitting with her chin on the back of her chair, arms clasping the latter, watching the strange and fascinating scene of people ordering what they wanted to eat and eating as much of it as they wanted. "I don't know. I am very busy. After Christmas, perhaps."

"You mean for me there is to be no Christmas? Am I to be for ever kept outside, Frances?"

"Outside?" She looked up and away. "I have no home. We are both—outside. To have no home at Christmas is—" Quickly she got up. "We must go. It is getting late, and there is much to do."

For one swift moment she let his eyes hold hers, and in his burned all the hunger of the years of loss; then, taking up her muff, she went toward the door. On the street she hesitated, then held out her hand. "Good-by, Mr. Van Landing. I hope you will have a happy Christmas."

"Do you?" Van Landing opened the cab door. "Get in, please. I will come in another cab." Stooping, he pushed aside some boxes and bundles and made room for Carmencita. "I'll be around at four to help dress the tree. Wait until I come." He nodded to the cabman; then, lifting his hat, he closed the door with a click and, turning, walked away.

"Carmencita! oh, Carmencita!" Into the child's eyes the beautiful ones of her friend looked with sudden appeal, and the usually steady hands held those of Carmencita with frightened force. "What have you done? What have you done?"

"Done?" Carmencita's fingers twisted into those of her beloved, and her laugh was joyous. "Done! Not much yet. I've just begun. Did—did you know you were to have a grand Christmas present, Miss Frances? You are. It's—it's alive!"



CHAPTER XV

The time intervening before his return to help with the tree was spent by Van Landing in a certain establishment where jewels were kept and in telephoning Peterkin; and the orders to Peterkin were many. At four o'clock he was back at Mother McNeil's.

In the double parlor of the old-fashioned house, once the home of wealth and power, the tree was already in place, and around it, in crowded confusion, were boxes and barrels, and bundles and toys, and clothes and shoes, and articles of unknown name and purpose, and for a moment he hesitated. Hands in his pockets, he looked first at Mother McNeil and then at a little lame boy on the floor beside an open trunk, out of which he was taking gaily-colored ornaments and untangling yards of tinsel; and then he looked at Frances, who, with a big apron over her black dress, with its soft white collar open at the throat, was holding a pile of empty stockings in her hands.

"You are just in time, my son." Mother McNeil beamed warmly at the uninvited visitor. "When a man can be of service, it's let him serve, I say, and if you will get that step-ladder over there and fix this angel on the top of the tree it will save time. Jenkins has gone for more tinsel and more bread. We didn't intend at first to have sandwiches and chocolate—just candy and nuts and things like that—but it's so cold and snowy Frances thought something good and hot would taste well. You can slice the bread, Mr. Van Landing. Four sandwiches apiece for the boys and three for the girls are what we allow." She looked around. "Hand him that angel, Frances, and show him where to put it. I've got to see about the cakes."

Never having fastened an angel to the top of a tree, for a half-moment Van Landing was uncertain how to go about it, fearing exposure of ignorance and awkwardness; then with a quick movement he was up the ladder and looking down at the girl who was handing him a huge paper doll dressed in the garments supposedly worn by the dwellers of mansions in the sky, and as he took it he laughed.

"This is a very worldly-looking angel. She apparently enjoys the blowing of her trumpet. Stand off, will you, and see if that's right?" Van Landing fastened the doll firmly to the top of the tree. "Does she show well down there?"

It was perfectly natural that he should be here and helping. True, he had never heard of Mother McNeil and her home until two nights before, never had dressed a Christmas tree before, or before gone where he was not asked, but things of that sort no longer mattered. What mattered was that he had found Frances, that it was the Christmas season, and he was at last learning the secret of its hold on human hearts and sympathies. There was no time to talk, but as he looked he watched, with eyes that missed no movement that she made, the fine, fair face that to him was like no other on earth, and, watching, he wondered if she, too, wondered at the naturalness of it all.

The years that had passed since he had seen her had left their imprint. She had known great sorrow, also she had traveled much, and, though about her were the grace and courage of old, there was something else, something of nameless and compelling appeal, and he knew that she, too, knew the loneliness of life.

Quickly they worked, and greater and greater grew the confusion of the continually appearing boxes and bundles, and, knee-deep, Mother McNeil surveyed them, hands on her hips, and once or twice she brushed her eyes.

"It's always the way, my son. If you trust people they will not fail you. When we learn how to understand there will be less hate and more help in the world. Jenkins, bring that barrel of apples and box of oranges over here and get a knife for Mr. Van Landing to cut the bread for the sandwiches. It's time to make them. Matilda, call Abraham in. He can slice the ham and cheese. There must be plenty. Boys are hollow. Frances, have you seen my scissors?"

Out of what seemed hopeless confusion and chaotic jumbling, out of excited coming and going, and unanswered questions, and slamming of doors, and hurried searchings, order at last evolved, and, feeling very much as if he'd been in a football match, Van Landing surveyed the rooms with a sense of personal pride in their completeness. Around the tree, placed between the two front windows, were piled countless packages, each marked, and from the mantelpiece hung a row of bulging stockings, reinforced by huge mounds of the same on the floor, guarded already by old Fetch-It. Holly and cedar gave color and fragrance, and at the uncurtained windows wreaths, hung by crimson ribbons, sent a welcome to the waiting crowd outside.

If he were not here he would be alone, with nothing to do. And Christmas eve alone! He drew in his breath and looked at Frances. In her face was warm, rich color, and her eyes were gay and bright, but she was tired. She would deny it if asked. He did not have to ask. If only he could take her away and let her rest!

She was going up-stairs to change her dress. Half-way up the steps he called her, and, leaning against the rail of the banisters, he looked up at her.

"When you come down I must see you, Frances—and alone. I shall wait here for you."

"I cannot see you alone. There will be no time."

"Then we must make time. I tell you I must see you." Something in her eyes made him hesitate. He must try another way. "Listen, Frances. I want you to do me a favor. There's a young girl in my office, my stenographer, who is to be married to-morrow to my head clerk. She is from a little town very far from here and has no relatives, no intimate friends near enough to go to. She lives in a boarding-house, and she can't afford to go home to be married. I have asked Herrick to bring her to my apartment to-morrow and marry her there. I would like her to have—Carmencita and her father are coming, and I want you to come, too. It would make things nicer for her. Will you come—you and Mother McNeil?"

Over the banisters the beautiful eyes looked down into Van Landing's. Out of them had gone guarding. In them was that which sent the blood in hot surge through his heart. "I would love to come, but I am going out of town to-morrow—going—"

"Home?" In Van Landing's voice was unconcealed dismay. The glow of Christmas, new and warm and sweet, died sharply, leaving him cold and full of fear. "Are you going home?"

She shook her head. "I have no home. That is why I am going away to-morrow. Mother McNeil will have her family here, and I'd be—I'd be an outsider. It's everybody's home day—and when you haven't a home—"

She turned and went a few steps farther on to where the stairs curved, then suddenly she sat down and crumpled up and turned her face to the wall. With leaps that took the steps two at a time Van Landing was beside her.

"Frances!" he said, "Frances!" and in his arms he held her close. "You've found out, too! Thank God, you've found out, too!"

Below, a door opened and some one was in the hall. Quickly Frances was on her feet. "You must not, must not, Stephen—not here!"

"Goodness gracious! they've done made up."

At the foot of the steps Carmencita, as if paralyzed with delight, stood for a moment, then, shutting tight her eyes, ran back whence she came; at the door she stopped.

"Carmencita! Carmencita!" It was Van Landing's voice. She turned her head. "Come here, Carmencita. I have something to tell you."

Eyes awed and shining, Carmencita came slowly up the steps. Reaching them, with a spring she threw her arms around her dear friend's neck and kissed her lips again and again and again, then held out her hands to the man beside her. "Is—is it to be to-morrow, Mr. Van?"

"It is to be to-morrow, Carmencita."

For a half-moment there was quivering silence; then Van Landing spoke again. "There are some things I must attend to to-night. Early to-morrow I will come for you, Frances, and in Dr. Pierson's church we will be married. Herrick and Miss Davis are coming at one o'clock, and my—wife must be there to receive them. And you, too, Carmencita—you and your father. We are going to have—" Van Landing's voice was unsteady. "We are going to have Christmas at home, Frances. Christmas at home!"



CHAPTER XVI

Lifting herself on her elbow, Carmencita listened. There was no sound save the ticking of the little clock on the mantel. For a moment she waited, then with a swift movement of her hand threw back the covering on the cot, slipped from it, and stood, barefooted, in her nightgown, in the middle of the floor. Head on the side, one hand to her mouth, the other outstretched as if for silence from some one unseen, she raised herself on tiptoe and softly, lightly, crossed the room to the door opening into the smaller room wherein her father slept. Hand on the knob, she listened, and, the soft breathing assuring her he was asleep, she closed the door, gave a deep sigh of satisfaction, and hurried back to the cot, close to which she sat down, put on her stockings, and tied on her feet a pair of worn woolen slippers, once the property of her prudent and practical friend, Miss Cattie Burns. Slipping on her big coat over her gown, she tiptoed to the mantel, lighted the candle upon it, and looked at the clock.

"Half past twelve," she said, "and Father's stocking not filled yet!"

As she got down from the chair on which she had stood to see the hour her foot caught in the ripped hem of her coat. She tripped, and would have fallen had she not steadied herself against the table close to the stove, and as she did so she laughed under her breath.

"Really this kimono is much too long." She looked down on the loosened hem. "And I oughtn't to wear my best accordion-pleated pale-blue crepe de Chine and shadow lace when I am so busy. But dark-gray things are so unbecoming, and, besides, I may have a good deal of company to-night. The King of Love and the Queen of Hearts may drop in, and I wouldn't have time to change. Miss Lucrecia Beck says I'm going to write a book when I'm big, I'm so fond of making up and of love-things. She don't know I've written one already. If he hadn't happened to be standing on that corner looking so—so—I don't know what, exactly, but so something I couldn't help running down and asking him to come up—I never would have had the day I've had to-day and am going to have to-morrow."

Stooping, she pinned the hem of her coat carefully, then, stretching out her arms, stood on her tiptoes and spun noiselessly round and round. "Can't help it!" she said, as if to some one who objected. "I'm so glad I'm living, so glad I spoke to him, and know him, that I'm bound to let it out. Father says I mustn't speak to strangers; but I'd have to be dead not to talk, and I didn't think about his being a man. He looked so lonely."

With quick movements a big gingham apron was tied over the bulky coat, and, putting the candle on the table in the middle of the room, Carmencita began to move swiftly from cot to cupboard, from chairs to book-shelves, and from behind and under each bundles and boxes of varying sizes were brought forth and arrayed in rows on the little table near the stove. As the pile grew bigger so did her eyes, and in her cheeks, usually without color, two spots burned deep and red. Presently she stood off and surveyed her work and, hands clasped behind, began to count, her head nodding with each number.

"Thirteen big ones and nineteen little ones," she said, "and I don't know a thing that's in one of them. Gracious! this is a nice world to live in! I wonder what makes people so good to me? Mrs. Robinsky brought up those six biggest ones to-night." Lightly her finger was laid on each. "She said they were left with her to be sent up to-morrow morning, but there wouldn't be a thing to send if she waited, as the children kept pinching and poking so to see what was in them. I'd like to punch myself. Noodles gave me that." Her head nodded at a queer-shaped package wrapped in brown paper and tied with green cord. "He paid nineteen cents for it. He told me so. I didn't pay but five for what I gave him. He won't brush his teeth or clean his finger-nails, and I told him I wasn't going to give him a thing if he didn't, but I haven't a bit of hold-out-ness at Christmas. I wonder what's in that?"

Cautiously her hand was laid on a box wrapped in white tissue-paper and tied with red ribbons. "I'll hate to open it and see, it looks so lovely and Christmasy, but if I don't see soon I'll die from wanting to know. It rattled a little when I put it on the table. It's Miss Frances's present, and I know it isn't practical. She's like I am. She don't think Christmas is for plain and useful things. She thinks it's for pleasure and pretty ones. I wonder—" Her hands were pressed to her breast, and on tiptoes she leaned quiveringly toward the table. "I wonder if it could be a new tambourine with silver bells on it! If it is I'll die for joy, I'll be so glad! I broke mine to-night. I shook it so hard when I was dancing after I got home from the tree that—Good gracious! I've caught my foot again! These diamond buckles on my satin slippers are always catching the chiffon ruffles on my petticoats. I oughtn't to wear my best things when I'm busy, but I can't stand ugly ones, even to work in. Mercy! it's one o'clock, and the things for Father's stocking aren't out yet."

Out of the bottom drawer of the old-fashioned chest at the end of the room a box was taken and laid on the floor near the stove, into which a small stick of wood was put noiselessly, and carefully Carmencita sat down beside it. Taking off the top of the box, she lifted first a large-size stocking and held it up.

"I wish I was one hundred children's mother at Christmas and had a hundred stockings to fill! I mean, if I had things to fill them with. But as I'm not a mother, just a daughter, I'm thankful glad I've got a father to fill a stocking for. He's the only child I've got. If he could just see how beautiful and red this apple is, and how yellow this orange, and what a darling little candy harp this is, I'd be thankfuler still. But he won't ever see. The doctor said so—said I must be his eyes."

One by one the articles were taken out of the box and laid on the floor; and carefully, critically, each was examined.

"This cravat is an awful color." Carmencita's voice made an effort to be polite and failed. "Mr. Robinsky bought it for father himself and asked me to put it in his stocking, but I hate to put. I'll have to do it, of course, and father won't know the colors, but what on earth made him get a green-and-red plaid? Now listen at me! I'm doing just what Miss Lucrecia does to everything that's sent her. The only pleasure she gets out of her presents is making fun of them and snapping at the people who send them. She's an awful snapper. The Damanarkist sent these cigars. They smell good. He don't believe in Christmas, but he sent Father and me both a present. I hope he'll like the picture-frame I made for his mother's picture. His mother's dead, but he believed in her. She was the only thing he did believe in. A man who don't believe in his mother—Oh, my precious mother!"

With a trembling movement the little locket was taken from the box and opened and the picture in it kissed passionately; then, without warning, the child crumpled up and hot tears fell fast over the quivering face. "I do want you, my mother! Everybody wants a mother at Christmas, and I haven't had one since I was seven. Father tries to fill my stocking, but it isn't a mother-stocking, and I just ache and ache to—to have one like you'd fix. I want—" The words came tremblingly, and presently she sat up.

"Carmencita Bell, you are a baby. Behave—your—self!" With the end of the gingham apron the big blue eyes were wiped. "You can't do much in this world, but you can keep from crying. Suppose Father was to know." Her back straightened and her head went up. "Father isn't ever going to know, and if I don't fill this stocking it won't be hanging on the end of the mantelpiece when he wakes up. The locket must go in the toe."



CHAPTER XVII

In half an hour the stocking, big and bulging, was hung in its accustomed place, the packages for her father put on a chair by themselves, and those for her left on the table, and as she rearranged the latter something about the largest one arrested her attention, and, stopping, she gazed at it with eyes puzzled and uncertain.

It looked—Cautiously her fingers were laid upon it. Undoubtedly it looked like the box in which had been put the beautiful dark-blue coat she had bought for the little friend of her friend. And that other box was the size of the one the two dresses had been put in; and that was a hat-box, and that a shoe-box, and the sash and beads and gloves and ribbons, all the little things, had been put in a box that size. Every drop of blood surged hotly, tremblingly, and with eyes staring and lips half parted her breath came unsteadily.

In the confusion of their coming she had not noticed when Mrs. Robinsky had brought them up and put them under the cot, with the injunction that they were not to be opened until the morning, and for the first time their familiarity was dawning on her. Could it be—could she be the little friend he had said was rich? She wasn't rich. He didn't mean money-rich, but she wasn't any kind of rich; and she had been so piggy.

Hot color swept over her face, and her hands twitched. She had told him again and again she was getting too much, but he had insisted on her buying more, and made her tell him what little girls liked, until she would tell nothing more. And they had all been for her. For her, Carmencita Bell, who had never heard of him three days before.

In the shock of revelation, the amazement of discovery, the little figure at the table stood rigid and upright, then it relaxed and with a stifled sob Carmencita crossed the room and, by the side of her cot, twisted herself into a little knot and buried her face in her arms and her arms in the covering.

"I didn't believe! I didn't believe!"

Over and over the words came tremblingly. "I prayed and prayed, but I didn't believe! He let it happen, and I didn't believe!"

For some moments there were queer movements of twitching hands and twisting feet by the side of the cot, but after a while a tear-stained, awed, and shy-illumined face looked up from the arms in which it had been hidden and ten slender fingers intertwined around the knees of a hunched-up little body, which on the floor drew itself closer to the fire.

It was a wonderful world, this world in which she lived. Carmencita's eyes were looking toward the window, through which she could see the shining stars. Wonderful things happened in it, and quite beyond explaining were these things, and there was no use trying to understand. Two days ago she was just a little girl who lived in a place she hated and was too young to go to work, and who had a blind father and no rich friends or relations, and there was nothing nice that could happen just so.

"But things don't happen just so. They happen—don't anybody know how, I guess." Carmencita nodded at the stars. "I've prayed a good many times before and nothing happened, and I don't know why all this beautifulness should have come to me, and Mrs. Beckwith, who is good as gold, though a poor manager with babies, shouldn't ever have any luck. I don't understand, but I'm awful thankful. I wish I could let God know, and the Christ-child know, how thankful I am. Maybe the way they'd like me to tell is by doing something nice for somebody else. I know. I'll ask Miss Parker to supper Christmas night. She's an awful poky person and needs new teeth, but she says she's so sick of mending pants, she wishes some days she was dead. And I'll ask the Damanarkist. He hasn't anywhere to go, and he hates rich people so it's ruined his stomach. Hate is an awful ruiner."

For some moments longer Carmencita sat in huddled silence, then presently she spoke again.

"I didn't intend to give Miss Cattie Burns anything. I've tried to like Miss Cattie and I can't. But it was very good in her to send us a quarter of a cord of wood for a Christmas present. She can't help being practical. I'll take her that red geranium to-morrow. I raised it from a slip, and I hate to see it go, but it's all I've got to give. It will have to go.

"And to-morrow. I mean to-day—this is Christmas day! Oh, a happy Christmas, everybody!" Carmencita's arms swung out, then circled swiftly back to her heart. "For everybody in all the world I'd make it happy if I could! And I'm going to a wedding to-day—a wedding! I don't wonder you're thrilly, Carmencita Bell!"

For a half-moment breath came quiveringly from the parted lips, then again at the window and the stars beyond the little head nodded.

"But I'll never wonder at things happening any more. I'll just wonder at there being so many nice people on this earth. All are not nice. The Damanarkist says there is a lot of rot in them, a lot of meanness and cheatingness, and nasty people who don't want other people to do well or to get in their way; but there's bound to be more niceness than nastiness, or the world couldn't go on. It couldn't without a lot of love. It takes a lot of love to stand life. I read that in a book. Maybe that's why we have Christmas—why the Christ-child came."

Shyly the curly head was bent on the upraised knees, and the palms of two little hands were uplifted. "O God, all I've got to give is love. Help me never to forget, and put a lot in my heart so I'll always have it ready. And I thank You and thank You for letting such grand things happen. I didn't dream there'd really be a marriage when I asked You please to let it be if you could manage it; but there's going to be two, and I'm going to both. I've got a new dress to wear, and slippers with buckles, and amber beads, and lots of other things. And most of all I thank You for Mr. Van and Miss Frances finding each other. And please don't let them ever lose each other again. They might, even if they are married, if they don't take care. Please help them to take care, for Christ's sake. Amen."

* * * * *

On her feet, Carmencita patted the stocking hanging from the mantel, took off the big coat, kicked the large, loose slippers across the room, blew out the candle, and stood for a moment poised on the tip of her toes.

"If I could"—the words came breathlessly—"if I could I'd dance like the lady I was named for, but it might wake Father. I mustn't wake Father. Good night, everybody—and a merry Christmas to all this nice, big world!"

With a spring that carried her across the room Carmencita was on her cot and beneath its covering, which she drew up to her face. Under her breath she laughed joyously, and her arms were hugged to her heart.

"To-morrow—I mean to-day—I am going to tell them. They don't understand yet. They think it was just an accident." She shook her head. "It wasn't an accident. After they're married I'm going to tell them. Tell them how it happened."

THE END