“Norah,” said Miss Terry, with an eagerness which made her voice tremble, “I want you to hang the Christmas Angel in the window there.  I too have a fancy to burn a candle to-night.  If it is not too late I’d like to have a little share in the Christmas spirit.”

Norah’s eyes lighted.  “Oh, yes’m,” she said.  “I’ll hang it right away.  And I’ll find an empty spool to hold the candle.”

She bustled briskly about, and presently in the window appeared a little device unlike any other in the block.  Against the darkness within, the figure of the Angel with arms outstretched towards the street shone in a soft light from the flame of a single tiny candle such as blossom on Christmas trees.

It caught the attention of many home-goers, who said, smiling, “How simple!  How pretty!  How quaint!  It is a type of the Christmas spirit which is abroad to-night.  You can feel it everywhere, blessing the city.”

For some minutes before the candle was lighted, a man muffled in a heavy overcoat had been standing in a doorway opposite Miss Terry’s house.  He was tall and grizzled and his face was sad.  He stared up at the gloomy windows, the only oblongs of blackness in the illuminated block, and he shivered, shrugging his shoulders.

“The same as ever!” he said to himself.  “I might have known she would never change.  Any one else, on Christmas Eve, after the letter I wrote her, would have softened a little.  But I might have known.  She is hard as nails!  Of course, it was my fault in the first place to leave her as I did.  But when I acknowledged it, and when I wrote that letter on Christmas Eve, I thought Angelina might feel differently.”  He looked at his watch.  “Nearly half-past nine,” he muttered.  “I may as well go home.  She said she wanted to be let alone; that Christmas meant nothing to her.  I don’t dare to call,—­on my only sister!  I suppose she is there all alone, and here I am all alone, too.  What a pity!  If I saw the least sign—­”

Just then there was the spark of a match against the darkness framed in by the window opposite.  A hand and arm shone in the flicker of light across the upper sash.  A tiny spark, tremulous at first, like a bird alighting on a frail branch, paused, steadied, and became fixed.  In the light of a small taper the man caught a glimpse of a pale, long face in a frame of silver hair.  It faded into the background.  But above the candle he now saw, with arms outstretched as it seemed toward himself, a pink little angel with gauzy wings.

The man’s heart gave a leap.  Sudden memories thronged his brain, making him almost dizzy.  At last they formulated into one smothered cry.  “The Christmas Angel!  It is the very same pink Angel that Angelina and I used to hang on our Christmas tree!”

In three great leaps, like a schoolboy, he crossed the street and ran up the steps of Number 87.  The Christmas Angel seemed to smile with ineffable sweetness as he gave the bell a vigorous pull.