CHAPTER XIV

TOM

Miss Terry was leaning on the mantel-shelf looking into the fire, when the bell pealed furiously.  She started and turned pale.

“Lord ‘a’ mercy!” ejaculated Norah, who was still admiring the effect of the window-decoration.  “What’s that?  Who can be calling here to-night, making such a noise?”

“Go to the door, Norah,” said Miss Terry with a strange note in her voice.  “It may be some one to see me.  It is not too late.”

“Yes’m,” said Norah, obedient but bewildered.

Presently the library door opened and a figure strode in; a tall, broad-shouldered man in a fur overcoat.  For a moment he stood just inside the door, hesitating.  Miss Terry took two steps forward from the fire-place.

“Tom!” she said faintly.  “You came,—­after all!”

“After all, Angelina,” he said.  “Yes, because I saw that,” he waved his hand toward the window.  “That gave me courage to come in.  It is our Christmas Angel.  I remember all about it.  Does it mean anything, Angelina?”

Miss Terry held out a moment longer.  Then she faltered forward.  “O Tom!” she sobbed, as she felt his brotherly, strong arms about her.  “O Tom!  And so he has brought you back to me, and me to you!”

“He?  Angelina girl, who?” He smoothed her silver hair with rough, kind fingers.

“Why, the Christmas Angel; our Guardian Angel, Tom.  All these years I kept him in the play box, and I was going to burn him up.  But I couldn’t do it, Tom.  How wonderful it is!”

They sat down before the fire and she began to tell him the whole story.  But she interrupted herself to send for Norah, who came to her, mystified and half scandalized by the greeting which she had seen those two oldsters exchange.

“This is my brother Tom, Norah, who has come back,” she said.  “I believe it is not too late to make some preparation for Christmas Day.  The stores will still be open.  Run out and order things for a grand occasion, Norah.  And—­O Norah!” a sudden remembrance came to her.  “If you have time, will you please get some toys and pretty things such as a little girl would like; a little girl of about ten, with my complexion,—­I mean, with yellow hair and blue eyes.  We may have a little guest to-morrow.”

“Yes’m,” said Norah, moving like one in a dream.

“A guest?” exclaimed Tom.  And Miss Terry told him about Mary.

“I love little girls,” said Tom, “especially little girls with yellow hair and blue eyes, such as you used to have, Angelina.”

“You will like Mary, then,” said Miss Terry, with a pretty pink flush of pleasure in her cheeks.

“I shall like her, if she comes,” amended Tom, who, man-like, received with reservations the account of a vision vouchsafed not unto him.

“She will come,” said Miss Terry with her old positiveness, glancing towards the window where the Christmas Angel hung.