“Are you Santa Claus?” the voice whispered in his ear.

“Crackerjack” dropped the paper and turned like a flash, knife upraised in his clenched hand, to confront a very little girl and a still smaller boy staring at him in open-eyed astonishment, an astonishment which was without any vestige of alarm.  He looked down at the two and they looked up at him, equal bewilderment on both sides.

“I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,” said the younger of the twain, whose pajamas bespoke the nascent man.

“In all the books he has a long white beard.  Where’s yours?” asked the coming woman.

This innocent question no less than the unaffected simplicity and sincerity of the questioner overpowered “Crackerjack.”  He sank back into a convenient chair and stared at the imperturbable pair.  There was a strange and wonderful likeness in the sweet-faced golden-haired little girl before him to the worn, haggard, and ill-clad little girl who lay shivering in the mean bed in the upper room where God was not—­or so he fancied.

“You’re a little girl, aren’t you?” he whispered.

No voice had been or was raised above a whisper.  It was a witching hour and its spell was upon them all.

“Yes.”

“What is your name?”

“Helen.”

Now Helen had been “Crackerjack’s” mother’s name and it was the name of his own little girl, and although everybody else called her Nell, to him she was always Helen.

“And my name’s John,” volunteered the other child.

“John!” That was extraordinary!

“What’s your other name?”

“John William.”

The man stared again.  Could this be coincidence merely?  John was his own name and William that of his brother.

“I mean what is your last name?”

“Carstairs,” answered the little girl.  “Now you tell us who you are.  You aren’t Santa Claus, are you?  I don’t hear any reindeers outside, or bells, and you haven’t any pack, and you’re not by the fireplace where our stockings are.”

[Illustration:  “I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,” said the younger of the twain.]

“No,” said the man, “I’m not exactly Santa Claus, I’m his friend—­I—­”

What should he say to these children?  In his bewilderment for the moment he actually forgot the letter which he still held tightly in his hand.

“Dat’s muvver’s safe,” continued the little boy.  “She keeps lots o’ things in it.  It’s all hers but dat drawer.  Dat’s papa’s and—­”

“I think I hear some one on the stairs,” broke in the little girl suddenly in great excitement.  “Maybe that’s Santa Claus.”

“Perhaps it is,” said the man, who had also heard.  “You wait and watch for him.  I’ll go outside and attend to his reindeer.”

He made a movement to withdraw, but the girl caught him tightly by the hand.

“If you are his friend,” she said, “you can introduce us.  You know our names and—­”