The Christmas Angel Part 8

"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 m.u.f.fled 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 pa.s.sing 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.