nd he paused to gather himself--"_It's
all over town!_" There being nothing further to live for, he delivered
himself to grief--to be tortured and destroyed.

Clytie set the candle on the bureau and came to hover him. Within the
pressing arms and upon the proffered bosom he wept out one of those griefs
that may not be told--that only the heart can understand. Yet, when the
first passion of it was spent she began to reassure him, begging him not
to be misled by idle gossip; to take not even her own testimony, but to
wait and see what he would see. At last he listened and was a little
soothed. It appeared that Santa Claus was one you might believe in or
might not. Even Clytie seemed to be puzzled about him. He could see that
she overflowed with belief in him, yet he could not make her confess it in
plain straight words. The meat of it was that good children found things
on Christmas morning which must have been left by some one--if not by
Santa Claus, then by whom? Did the little boy believe, for example, that
Milo Barrus did it? He was the village atheist, and so bad a man that he
loved to spell God with a little g.

He mused upon this while his tears dried, finding it plausible. Of course
it couldn't be Milo Barrus, so it _must_ be Santa Claus. Was Clytie
certain some presents would be there in the morning? If he went directly
to sleep, she was.

Hereupon the larger boy on the cot, who had for some moments listened in
forgetful silence, became again virtuously asleep in a public manner.

But the littler boy must yet have talk. Could the bells of Santa Claus be
heard when he came?

Clytie had known some children, of exceptional merit, it was true, who
claimed to have heard his bells on certain nights when they had gone early
to sleep.

_Why_ would he never leave anything for a child that got up out of bed
and caught him at it? Suppose one had to get up for a drink.

Because it broke the charm.

But if a very, _very_ good child just _happened_ to wake up while he was
in the room, and didn't pay the least attention to him, or even look
sidewise or anything--

Even this were hazardous, it seemed; though if the child were indeed very
good all might not yet be lost.

"Well, won't you leave the light for me? The dark gets in my eyes."

But this was another adverse condition, making everything impossible. So
she chided and reassured him, tucked the covers once more about his neck,
and left him, with a final comment