With something like a sigh Miss Terry strode back to the fire, where the play box stood gaping.  She had made but a small inroad upon its heaped-up treasures.  She threw herself listlessly into the chair and began to pull over the things.  Broken games and animals, dolls’ dresses painfully tailored by unskilled fingers, disjointed members,—­sorry relics of past pleasures,—­one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and finger and tossed them into the fire.  Her face showed not a qualm at parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good housekeeper’s duty fulfilled.  With queer contortions the bits writhed on the coals, and finally flared into dissolution, vanishing up chimney in a shower of sparks to the heaven of spent toys.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Almost at the bottom of the box Miss Terry’s fingers closed about a small object.  Once more she drew out the papier-mache Angel which had so excited the wonder of Norah when once before that evening it had come to light.

Miss Terry held it up and looked at it with the same expression on her face, half tender, half contemptuous.  “The Christmas Angel!” she murmured involuntarily, as she had done before.  And again there flashed through her mind a vivid picture.

It was the day before Christmas, fifty years earlier.  She and her brother Tom were trimming the Christmas tree in this very library.  She saw Tom, in a white pique suit with short socks that were always slipping down his fat legs.  She saw herself in a white dress and blue ribbons, pouting in a corner.  They had been quarreling about the Christmas tree, disputing as to which of them should light the first candle when the time arrived.  Then their mother came to them smiling, a sweet-faced lady who seemed not to notice the red faces and the tears.  She put something into Tom’s hand saying, “This is the Christmas Angel of peace and good-will.  Hang it on the tree, children, so that it may shed a blessing on all who come here to give and to receive.”

How lovely and pink it looked in Tom’s hand!  Little Angelina had thought it the most beautiful thing she had ever seen,—­and holy, too, as if it had some blessed charm.  Fiddlestick!  What queer fancies children have!  Miss Terry remembered how a strange thrill had crept through Angelina as she gazed at it.  Then she and Tom looked at each other and were ashamed of their quarrel.  Suddenly Tom held out the Angel to his sister.  “You hang it on the tree, Angelina,” he said magnanimously.  “I know you want to.”

But she—­little fool!—­she too had a fit of generosity.

“No, you hang it, Tom.  You’re taller,” she said.

“I’ll hang it at the very top of the tree!” he replied, nothing loath.  Eagerly he mounted the step-ladder, while Angelina watched him enviously, thinking how clumsy he was, and how much better she could do it.