her burden
onto the cluttered kitchen table. "I wish it had been chicken, but Mr.
Hartman says stewed rabbit is real good."

"Where did you get these?" demanded Gail, surmising the truth.

"They are Winkum and Blinkum. Mr. Hartman undressed them for me. I got
my shoes back, and here's the strawberry money for your new coat, Gail."
As clearly as possible she made her explanations, and went away to put
up the tennis slippers, leaving dismayed Gail to face the unique
situation.

"What can I do?" she cried, almost in tears.

"Get yourself a new coat, if you can find one for the price," answered
Faith, listlessly scrubbing a panful of turnips for dinner.

"I don't mean the coat. I had scarcely thought of the money. I mean the
rabbits."

"Cook them! People eat rabbits."

"But these were pets."

"They are dead now. You might as well use them as to throw them away. We
have no turkey or chicken for dinner."

Gail shivered, but obediently cut up the rabbits and put them on the
stove to cook, mentally resolving not to eat a bite of them herself.

The morning hours flew rapidly by, the dinner was done at last, and the
hungry girls were scrambling into their chairs when Faith cried sharply,
"Hope, you have set seven plates!"

Instinctively each heart thought of the absent member, gone from them
since the last Christmas Day, and Gail reached over to remove the extra
dishes, when Hope stopped her by saying, "Teacher read us a beautiful
poem of how some people always set a place for the Christ Child on His
birthday, hoping that He would come in person to celebrate the day with
them, and I thought it was such a pretty idea that--I--I--"

"Yes, dear," said Gail gently. "We will leave the extra plate there."

"It does seem queer, doesn't it, that we have big dinners on Christmas
Day 'cause it is Christ's birthday, and then we never give Him a dish,"
observed Peace, passing her plate for a helping.

"Did the Christ Child come?" asked Allee eagerly. "In the story, I
mean."

"Not in the way they looked for Him," answered Hope. "But a little
beggar child came. Some of the family were going to send it out into the
kitchen to eat with the servants, but one little boy insisted that it
should have the empty chair they had set for the Christ Child. So the
ragged beggar was pushed up to the table and fed all he wanted. When the
dinner was over, a great shining light filled the room and Christ
appeared to tell them that in feeding