out," he said.

He came out, looking gaunt, as with famine.

"I'll not flurr myself," he said, crunching his ragged hat in his
hands,--"I'll not."

He drove the hat down upon his head, and looked up with a sullen
fierceness.

"Yoh've got me, an' I'm glad of 't. I'm tired, fearin'. I was born for
hangin', they say," with a laugh. "But I'll see my girl. I've waited
hyur, runnin' the resk,--not darin' to see her, on 'count o' yoh. I
thort I was safe on Christmas-day,--but what's Christmas to yoh or me?"

Holmes's quiet motion drove him up the steps before him. He stopped at
the top, his cowardly nature getting the better of him, and sat down
whining on the upper step.

"Be marciful, Mas'r! I wanted to see my girl,--that's all. She's all I
hev."

Holmes passed him and went in. Was Christmas nothing to him? How did
this foul wretch know that they stood alone, apart from the world?

It was a low, cheerful little room that he came into, stooping his tall
head: a tea-kettle humming and singing on the wood-fire, that lighted up
the coarse carpet and the gray walls, but spent its warmest heat on
the low settee where Lois lay sewing, and singing to herself. She was
wrapped up in a shawl, but the hands, he saw, were worn to skin and
bone; the gray shadow was heavier on her face, and the brooding brown
eyes were like a tired child's. She tried to jump up when she saw him,
and not being able, leaned on one elbow, half-crying as she laughed.

"It's the best Christmas gift of all I I can hardly b'lieve
it!"--touching the strong hand humbly that was held out to her.

Holmes had a gentle touch, I told you, for dogs and children and women:
so, sitting quietly by her, he listened with untiring patience to her
long story; looked at the heap of worthless trifles she had patched up
for gifts, wondering secretly at the delicate sense of color and grace
betrayed in the bits of flannel and leather; and took, with a grave look
of wonder, his own package, out of which a bit of woollen thread peeped
forth.

"Don't look till to-morrow mornin'," she said, anxiously, as she lay
back trembling and exhausted.

The breath of the mill! The fires of want and crime had finished their
work on her life,--so! She caught the meaning of his face quickly.

"It's nothin'," she said, eagerly. "I'll be strong by New-Year's; it's
only a day or two rest I need. I've no tho't o' givin' up."

And to show how strong she was, she got up and hobbled about