receipt of such a letter would be to any one of us! how we would take heart to live ourselves! what a Christmas present for any one of us to send to the human heart that has given us courage for the burden and heat of the day! Compare it with the contents of the spare-room closet. To be sure, such a message of the soul cannot often be sent, for the people whose courage helps us to live are not too plenty. But there are plenty of plain folk, folk like ourselves, who certainly mean

well, even if they are not inspiring, folk to whom we want to say 66 Merry Christmas!"and to put into their hands some sign of our words;-to these people, if we do not know clearly what they wish, let us give the evanescent, the vanishing symbol of our thought.

Thus will Christmas be lifted from the dust of trivialities into which we have flung it.

And thus, indeed, we shall be lifted to the level of Christmas!

CHAPTER I

ANBRIDGE lies near enough to the great City to make perceivable after nightfall, along the southern horizon, the amalgamated glow of its multitudinous eyes of electric fire. In the daytime the smoke of its mighty breathing in its race of progress and civilization darkens the southern sky. The trains of great railroad systems speed between Banbridge and the City. Half the male population of Banbridge and a goodly proportion of the female, have for years wrestled for their daily bread in the City, which the little village has long echoed, more or less feebly, though still quite accurately, with its own particular little suburban note.

Mrs. Henry Lee and Mrs. William Van Dorn were being driven about Banbridge by Samson Rawdy, the best liveryman in Banbridge, in his best coach, with his best two horses. The horses, indeed, two fat bays, were considered as rather sacred to fashionable calls, as was the coach, quite a resplendent affair, with very few worn places in the cloth lining. Banbridge ladies never walked to make fashionable calls. Ladies who were better off in this world's goods often displayed a friendly regard for those who could ill afford the necessary expense. Often one would invite another to call with her, defraying all the expenses of the trip, and Mrs. Van Dorn had so invited Mrs. Lee to-day. Mrs. Lee, who was a small, elderly woman, was full of deprecating gratitude and a sense of obligation which made it appear incumbent upon her not in any way to differ with her

companion in any opinion which she might advance, and, as a rule, to give her the initiative in conversation during their calls, and the precedence in entry and retreat.

Mrs. Van Dorn was as small as her companion, but with a confidence of manner which seemed to push her forward in the field of vision further than her size warranted.

Mrs. Van Dorn sat quite erect on the very edge of the seat, and so did Mrs. Lee. Each held her card-case in her two hands encased in nicely cleaned white kid gloves.

It was a wonderful day in May. The cherry-trees, of which there were many in Banbridge, were in full bloom, and tremulous with the winged jostling of bees. The yards of the village homes, or the grounds, as they were commonly designated, were gay with the earlier-flowering shrubs, almond and bridalwreath and Japanese quince.

"It is a beautiful day," said Mrs. Van Dorn.

"Yes, it is beautiful," echoed Mrs. Lee. Her faded blue eyes, under the network of ingratiating wrinkles, looked aside, from self-consciousness, out of the coach window at a velvet lawn with a cherry-tree and a dark fir side by side, and a Japanese quince in the foreground. But Mrs. Van Dorn's eyes, following hers, saw something else.

"That Whitlock house ought to be painted," said she, and indicated severely with one white kid finger the house in the rear of the charming scene of spring. The house had not had a coat of fresh white paint for years, and furnished no more substance for background than a gray cloud.

Mrs. Lee's eyes lost their rapt expression.