h happier than they had been for many weeks,
that when Gabriel and the younger children went to bed, the latter, with
many little gurgles of laughter, arranged their little wooden shoes on
the hearth, just as they had always done on Christmas eve.

For they said to each other, Jean, and Margot, and little Guillaume,
that surely the good God had not forgotten them after all! Had he not
brought back their father and the sheep? And surely he would tell the
little Christ-child to bring them a few Christmas apples and nuts!

Gabriel, however, took no part in their talk, and he did not set his
shoes on the hearth with the others; not that he feared they would be
forgotten, but rather because he thought that he had already asked for
so much and been so generously answered, that he had had his share of
Christmas happiness.

His father was freed from prison, and the flock of sheep, with fifty
more than they had had before, were back in the fold; and though they
were not yet relieved from the tax, nor was their land restored to them,
as he had prayed, yet he felt sure that these, too, would come about in
some way.

And so, considering all these things, he did not quite like to set out
his wooden shoes, and thus invite the Christ-child to give him more; for
he knew the Christ-child had a great many shoes to attend to that night.
So Gabriel, as he made himself ready for bed, pretended not to hear the
chatter of his little brothers and sister, nor to notice what they were
doing.

When peasant Viaud, however, saw them standing their little empty shoes
in front of the meagre fire, he bowed his head on his hands, and the
tears trickled through his fingers. But the mother smiled softly to
herself, as she kissed each of the children and tucked them into their
worn sheepskin covers.

Next morning, at the first peep of day, every one in the cottage was
wide awake; and as soon as they opened their eyes, the children all
jumped out of bed and ran to the hearth with little screams of delight.
For there stood the little wooden shoes,--Gabriel's, too, though he had
not put them there,--and even a larger one apiece for the father and
mother, and the blessed Christ-child had not forgotten one!

Only instead of apples and nuts, they were filled with the most
wonderful bonbons; strange sugar birds, and animals, and candied fruits
such as no peasant child in Normandy had ever before seen; for they
were sweetmeats that no one but the cooks of