sket on her arm. With her staff she
raps gently at the doors and goes inside and holds her candle close to
the little children's faces.

"Is He here?" she asks. "Is the little Christ Child here?" And then
she turns sorrowfully away again, crying: "Farther on, farther on."
But before she leaves she takes a toy from her basket and lays it
beside the pillow for a Christmas gift. "For His sake," she says
softly and then hurries on through the years and forever in search of
the little Christ Child.

[*] From "For the Children's Hour," by Bailey and Lewis. Used by
permission of the authors and also the publishers--Milton Bradley
Company.

THE BOY WITH THE BOX

By Mary Griggs Van Voorhis

It was an ideal Christmas day. The sun shone brightly but the air was
crisp and cold, and snow and ice lay sparkling everywhere. A light
wind, the night before, had swept the blue, icebound river clean of
scattering snow; and, by two o'clock in the afternoon, the broad bend
near Creighton's mill was fairly alive with skaters. The girls in gay
caps and scarfs, the boys in sweaters and mackinaws of every
conceivable hue, with here and there a plump, matronly figure in a
plush coat or a tiny fellow in scarlet, made a picture of life and
brilliancy worthy of an artist's finest skill.

Tom Reynolds moved in and out among the happy throng, with swift, easy
strokes, his cap on the back of his curly head, and his brown eyes
shining with excitement. Now and again, he glanced down with
pardonable pride, at the brand new skates that twinkled beneath his
feet. "Jolly Ramblers," sure enough "Jolly Ramblers" they were! Ever
since Ralph Evans had remarked, with a tantalizing toss of his
handsome head, that "no game fellow would try to skate on anything but
'Jolly Ramblers,'" Tom had yearned, with an inexpressible longing, for
a pair of these wonderful skates. And now they were his and the ice
was fine and the Christmas sun was shining!

Tom was rounding the big bend for the fiftieth time, when he saw,
skimming gracefully toward him through the merry crowd, a tall boy in
a fur-trimmed coat, his handsome head proudly erect.

"That's Ralph Evans now," said Tom to himself. "Just wait till you see
these skates, old boy, and maybe you won't feel so smart!" And with
slow, cautious strokes, he made his way through laughing boys and
girls to a place just in front of the tall skater, coming toward him
down the broad white way. When Ralph was almost