The woman shook her head.  “I have nothing,” she sighed.  “A roof over our heads, that’s all.”

“Your husband?”

“My man died a month ago.”

So other folk had raw sorrows, too.  The mourner had forgotten that.

“There is no one expecting you at home?” Again the woman shook her head dolefully.  “Come with me,” said the dark lady impulsively.  “You shall be my guests to-night.  And to-morrow I will make a Christmas for the children.  The house shall put off its shadow.  I too will light candles.  I have toys,”—­her voice broke,—­“and clothing; many things, which are being wasted.  That is not right!  Something led you to me, or me to you; something,—­perhaps it was an Angel,—­whoever dropped that Noah’s ark in the street.  An Angel might do that, I believe.  Come with me.”

The woman and her sons followed her, rejoicing greatly in the midst of their wonder.

* * * * *

There were tears in the eyes through which Miss Terry saw once more the Christmas Angel.  She wiped them hastily.  But still the Angel seemed to shine with a fairer radiance.

“You see!” was all he said.  And Miss Terry bowed her head.  She began to understand.

CHAPTER XI

MIRANDA AGAIN

Once more, on the wings of vision, Miss Terry was out in the snowy street.  She was following the fleet steps of a little girl who carried a white-paper package under her arm.  Miss Terry knew that she was learning the fate of her old doll, Miranda, whom her own hands had thrust out into a cold world.

Poor Miranda!  After all these years to become the property of a thief!  Mary was the little thief’s name.  Hugging the tempting package close, Mary ran and ran until she was out of breath.  Her one thought was to get as far as possible from the place where the bundle had lain.  For she suspected that the steps where she had found it led up to the doll’s home.  That was why in her own eyes also she was a little thief.  But now she had run so far and had turned so many corners that she could not find her way back if she would.  There was triumph in the thought.  Mary chuckled to herself as she stopped running and began to walk leisurely in the neighborhood with which she was more familiar.

She pinched the package gently.  Yes, there could be no doubt about it.  It was a doll,—­not a very large doll; but Mary reflected that she had never thought she should care for a large doll.  Undoubtedly it was a very nice one.  Had she not found it in a swell part of the city, on the steps of a swell-looking house?  Mary gloated over the doll as she fancied it; with real hair, and eyes that opened and shut; with four little white teeth, and hands with dimples in the knuckles.  She had seen such dolls in the windows of the big shops.  But she had never hoped to have one for her very own.