ssons and their social improvement classes? I knew
it! This Christmas spirit that one hears so much about is nothing but an
empty sham. I have proved it to my satisfaction to-night. I will burn the
rest of these toys, every one of them, and then go to bed. It is too
disgusting! She was a nice-looking child, too. Poor old Miranda!"

With something like a sigh Miss Terry strode back to the fire, where the
play box stood gaping. She had made but a small inroad upon its heaped-up
treasures. She threw herself listlessly into the chair and began to pull
over the things. Broken games and animals, dolls' dresses painfully
tailored by unskilled fingers, disjointed members,--sorry relics of past
pleasures,--one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and
finger and tossed them into the fire. Her face showed not a qualm at
parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good
housekeeper's duty fulfilled. With queer contortions the bits writhed on
the coals, and finally flared into dissolution, vanishing up chimney in a
shower of sparks to the heaven of spent toys.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Almost at the bottom of the box Miss Terry's fingers closed about a small
object. Once more she drew out the papier-mache Angel which had so excited
the wonder of Norah when once before that evening it had come to light.

Miss Terry held it up and looked at it with the same expression on her
face, half tender, half contemptuous. "The Christmas Angel!" she murmured
involuntarily, as she had done before. And again there flashed through her
mind a vivid picture.

It was the day before Christmas, fifty years earlier. She and her brother
Tom were trimming the Christmas tree in this very library. She saw Tom, in
a white pique suit with short socks that were always slipping down his fat
legs. She saw herself in a white dress and blue ribbons, pouting in a
corner. They had been quarreling about the Christmas tree, disputing as to
which of them should light the first candle when the time arrived. Then
their mother came to them smiling, a sweet-faced lady who seemed not to
notice the red faces and the tears. She put something into Tom's hand
saying, "This is the Christmas Angel of peace and good-will. Hang it on the
tree, children, so that it may shed a blessing on all who come here to give
and to receive."

How lovely and pink it looked in Tom's hand! Little Angelina had thought it
the most beautifu