The stringency endured some days, which time she huffed and he read Charles Darwin.  At the end of that period the ice broke, as it always does; the clouds rolled away, and the sun began to shine, and they began to negotiate for peace.  They had a long sitting of parliament, and it was moved and seconded, and unanimously carried, that each give the other a reprieve.  It meant the amalgamation of two hearts that became so intertwined with roots that nothing earthly could pull them asunder.  It was the founding of one of the happiest homes in Ashcroft.  He left his affinity—­she left her bed.  They became active working partners.  Long years after he told her of his ruse.  She laughed.

“You saved me,” she said.

He endorsed the note, and they had one long, sweet embrace which still lingers in their memory.

Of the Real Santa Claus

I.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Once upon a time it was Christmas eve in Vancouver, B.C., and the snow was falling in large, soft flakes.  The electric light plants were beating their lives out in laborious heart-throbs, giving forth such power that the streets and shop windows had the appearance of the phantom scene of a fairy stage-play rather than a grim reality; they were lighter than day.  There was magic illumination from the sidewalk to the very apex of the tallest sky-scraper.  Being Christmas eve, the streets were thronged with pleasure seekers, and eager, procrastinating, Christmas gift maniacs.  They were all happy, but they were temporarily insane in the eagerness of their pursuit.  They all had money, plenty of it; and this was the time of year when it was quite in order to squander it lavishly, carelessly, insanely—­for, is it not more blessed to give than to receive?

The habiliments of the hurrying throng were exuberant, extravagant and ostentatious in the extreme.  Everyone seemed to vie with every other, with an envy akin to insanity, for the laurels in the fashion world, and they were talking and laughing gaily, and some of them were singing Christmas carols.  They did not even seem to regret the soft wet snow that was falling on their costly apparel and soaking them—­they seemed rather to enjoy it.  Besides, they could go home at any time and change and dry themselves—­and, was it not Christmas, the one time of the year when the whole world was happy and lavish?  The persons of the ladies were bathed in perfume, and the clothing of the gentlemen was spotless, save where the large, white snowflakes clung for a moment before vanishing into fairyland.  Vancouver was certainly a city of luxury, a city of ease, a city of wealth, and it was all on exhibition at this time of approaching festival.  Everyone was rich, and money was no obstacle in the way of enjoyment.