The fire glowed redder and cheerier in Adam’s little cottage; the lamp was lighted; Jinny had set out a wonderful table, too.  Benny had walked around and around it, rubbing his hands slowly in dumb ecstasy.  Such oranges! and frosted cakes covered with crushed candy!  Such a tree in the middle, hung with soft-burning tapers, and hidden in the branches the white figure of the loving Christ-child.  That was Adam’s fancy.  Benny sat in Jinny’s lap now, his head upon her breast.  She was rocking him to sleep, singing some cheery song for him, although that baby of hers lay broad awake in the cradle, aghast and open-mouthed at his neglect.  It had been just “Benny” all day,—­Benny that she had followed about, uneasy lest the wind should blow through the open door on him, or the fire be too hot, or that every moment should not be full to the brim with fun and pleasure, touching his head or hand now and then with a woful tenderness, her throat choked, and her blue eyes wet, crying in her heart incessantly, “Lord, forgive me!”

“Tell me more of Charley,” she said, as they sat there in the evening.

He was awake a long time after that, telling her, ending with,—­

“She said, ‘You watch for me, Bud, all the time.’  That’s what she said.  So she’ll come.  She always does, when she says.  Then we’re going to the country to be good children together.  I’ll watch for her.”

So he fell asleep, and Jinny kissed him,—­looking at him an instant, her cheek growing paler.

“That is for you, Benny,” she whispered to herself,—­“and this,” stooping to touch his lips again, “this is for Charley.  Last night,” she muttered, bitterly, “it would have saved her.”

Old Adam sat on the side of the bed where the dead girl lay.

“Nelly’s child!” he said, stroking the hand, smoothing the fair hair.  All day he had said only that,—­“Nelly’s child!”

Very like her she was,—­the little Nell who used to save her cents to buy a Christmas-gift for him, and bring it with flushed cheeks, shyly, and slip it on his plate.  This child’s cheeks would have flushed like hers—­at a kind word; the dimpled, innocent smile lay in them,—­only a kind word would have brought it to life.  She was dead now, and he—­he had struck her yesterday.  She lay dead there with her great loving heart, her tender, childish beauty,—­a harlot,—­Devil Lot.  No more.

The old man pushed his hair back, with shaking hands, looking up to the sky.  “Lord, lay not this sin to my charge!” he said.  His lips were bloodless.  There was not a street in any city where a woman like this did not stand with foul hand and gnawing heart.  They came from God, and would go back to Him.  To-day the Helper came; but who showed Him to them, to Nelly’s child?

Old Adam took the little cold hand in his:  he said something under his breath:  I think it was, “Here am I, Lord, and the wife that Thou hast given,” as one who had found his life’s work, and took it humbly.  A sworn knight in Christ’s order.