s, charity associations--things of
that sort doubtless saw to them. It was not his business. But wasn't
it his business? Could it possibly be his business to know--and care?

"I beg your pardon, sir."

Van Landing looked up. A tall, slender man in working-clothes, a
basket on one arm, his wife holding to the other, tried to touch his
hat. "The crowd makes walking hard without pushing. I hope I didn't
step on your foot."

"Didn't touch it." The man had on no overcoat, and his hands were red
and chapped. He was much too thin for his height, and as he coughed
Van Landing understood. "Shopping, I suppose?"

Why he asked he did not know, and it was the wife he asked, the young
wife whose timid clutch of her husband's arm was very unlike the
manner of most of the women he had passed. She looked up.

"We were afraid to wait until to-morrow, it's snowing so hard. We
might not be able to get out, and the children--"

"We've got three kiddies home." The man's thin face brightened, and he
rubbed his coat sleeve across his mouth to check his cough. "Santa
Claus is sure enough to them, and we don't want 'em to know different
till we have to. A merry Christmas, sir!"

As they went on Van Landing turned and looked. They were poor people.
But were they quite so poor as he? He had seen many for whom he might
have made Christmas had he known in time--might have saved the
sacrifices that had to be made; but would it then have been Christmas?
Slowly, very slowly, in the shabby street and snow-filled air, an
understanding of things but dimly glimpsed before was coming to him,
and he was seeing what for long had been unseen.

CHAPTER IX

"Think hard, Father--oh, _please_ think hard! It was Van--Van--"
Carmencita, hands clutched tightly behind her back, leaned forward on
her tiptoes and anxiously peered into her father's face for sign of
dawning memory. "If I hadn't been so Christmas-crazy I'd have listened
better, but I wasn't thinking about his name. Can't you--_can't_ you
remember the last part? It was Van--Van--"

Slowly her father shook his head. "I wish I could, Carmencita. I don't
hear well of late and I didn't catch his name. You called him Mr.
Van."

"I called him that for short. I'm a cutting-down person even in
names." The palms of Carmencita's hands came together and her fingers
interlocked. "If I'd had more sense and manners I'd have called his
name right from the first, and we wouldn't have lost him. I coul