e porch, sitting on a stone seat under a Gothic niche, a child was
sleeping--a child who was clad in a robe of white linen, and whose feet
were bare, notwithstanding the cold. He was not a beggar, for his robe was
new and fresh, and near him on the ground was seen a square, a hatchet, a
pair of compasses, and the other tools of a carpenter's apprentice. Under
the light of the stars, his face bore an expression of divine sweetness,
and his long locks of golden hair seemed like an aureole about his head.
But the child's feet, blue in the cold of that December night, were sad to
see.

The children, so well clothed and shod for the winter, passed heedlessly
before the unknown child. One of them, the son of one of the principal men
in the village, looked at the waif with an expression in which no pity
could be seen.

But little Wolff, coming the last out of the church, stopped, full of
compassion, before the beautiful sleeping child. "Alas!" said the orphan
to himself, "it is too bad that this poor little one has to go barefoot in
such bad weather. But what is worse than all, he has not even a boot or a
wooden shoe to leave before him while he sleeps to-night, so that the
Christ-child could put something there to comfort him in his misery."

And, carried away by the goodness of his heart, little Wolff took off the
wooden shoe from his right foot, and laid it in front of the sleeping
child. Then, limping along on his poor blistered foot and dragging his
sock through the snow, he went back to his aunt's house.

"Look at that worthless fellow!" cried his aunt, full of anger at his
return without one of his shoes. "What have you done with your wooden
shoe, little wretch?"

Little Wolff did not know how to deceive, and although he was shaking with
terror, he tried to stammer out some account of his adventure.

The old woman burst into a frightful peal of laughter. "Ah, monsieur takes
off his shoes for beggars! Ah, monsieur gives away his wooden shoes to a
barefoot! This is something new! Ah, well, since that is so, I am going to
put the wooden shoe which you have left in the chimney, and I promise you
the Christ-child will leave there to-night something to whip you with in
the morning. And you shall pass the day to-morrow on dry bread and water.
We will see if next time you give away your shoe to the first vagabond
that comes."

Then the aunt, after having given the poor boy a couple of slaps, made him
climb up to his bed