"Will she bring it back?" asked Miss Terry eagerly, when once more she found herself under the gaze of the Christmas Angel. He nodded brightly.

 

"To-morrow morning you will see," he said. "It will prove that all I have shown you is really true."

 

"A pretty child," said Miss Terry musingly¹. "A very nice child indeed. I believe she looks very much as I used to be myself."

 

"You see, she is not a thief, after all; not yet," said the Angel. "What a pity that she must live in that sad home, with such terrible people! A sensitive child like her, craving² sympathy and affection,—what chance has she for happiness? What would you yourself have been in surroundings like hers?"

 

"Yes, she is very like what I was. Of course I shall let her keep the doll."

 

Miss Terry hesitated. The Angel looked at her steadily³ and his glance seemed to read her half-formed thoughts.

 

"Surely," he said. "It seems to belong to her, does it not? But is this all? I wonder if something more does not belong to her."

 

"What more?" asked Miss Terry shortly.

 

"A home!" cried the Angel.

 

Miss Terry groped in her memory for a scornful ejaculation which she had once been fond of using, but there was no such word to be found. Instead there came to her lips the name, "Mary."

 

The Angel repeated it softly. "Mary. It is a blessed name," he said. "Blessed the roof that shelters a Mary in her need."

 

There was a long silence, in which Miss Terry felt new impulses stirring within her; impulses drawing her to the child whose looks recalled her own childhood. The Angel regarded her with beaming eyes. After some time he said quietly, "Now let us see what became of your last experiment."

 

Miss Terry started. It seemed as if she had been interrupted in pleasant dreaming. "You were the last experiment," she said. "I know what became of you. Here you are!"

 

"Yet more may have happened than you guessed," replied the Angel meaningly. "I have tried to show you how often that is the case. Look again."

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