ying in the summer meadows,
chasing butterflies and gathering flowers. And there also was the winter
child--the child of extreme desolation--shivering on a doorstep in one
of London's streets. There were other children, too--saintly
children--St. Agnes and her lamb, St. Elizabeth, St. Ursula; and, above
all, there were photographs of the famous pictures of the Child of all
children, the Child of Bethlehem.

The windows of the room were shaded by soft curtains of pale blue. A
cheerful fire burned in the grate, and a child lay, half-sitting up, in
a bed covered by a silken eider-down.

The child looked quite content in his little bed, and a trained nurse
who was in the room went softly out by another door as Mrs. Anderson and
the preacher entered.

"Hasn't Connie come back?" asked Ronald.

"No, dear," said Mrs. Anderson; "she's not able to do so just yet."

"I want her," said Ronald, suppressing a sigh.

"I have brought this gentleman to see you, Ronald."

"What?"

The boy cast a quick glance at the somewhat ungainly figure of Father
John. Another disappointment--not the father he was waiting for. But the
luminous eyes of the preacher seemed to pierce into the boy's soul. When
he looked once, he looked again. When he looked twice, it seemed to him
that he wanted to look forever.

"I am glad," he said; and a smile broke over his little face.

Father John sat down at once by the bedside, and Mrs. Anderson went
softly out of the room.

"Waiting for something, little man?" said the street preacher.

"How can you tell?" asked Ronald.

"I see it in your eyes," said the preacher.

"It's father," said Ronald.

"Which father?" asked the preacher.

"My own," said Ronald--"my soldier father--the V. C. man, you know."

"Yes," said Father John.

"I want him," said Ronald.

"Of course you do."

"Is he likely to come soon?" asked Ronald.

"If I could tell you that, Ronald," said the street preacher, "I should
be a wiser man than my Father in heaven means me to be. There is only
one Person who can tell you when your earthly father will come."

"You mean Lord Christ," said Ronald.

"I mean Christ and our Father in heaven."

Ronald shut his eyes for a minute. Then he opened them.

"I want my father," he said. "I'm sort o' starving for him."

"Well," said Father John, "you have a father, you know--you have two
fathers. If you can't get your earthly father down here, you're certain
safe to get him up there.