“I will, indeed!” breathed Dick into his muffler.

[Illustration]

VII

Repeating history, Letty was again at her open window.  She had been half-ashamed to reproduce the card, as it were, but something impelled her.  She was safe from scrutiny, too, for everybody had gone to the tree—­the Pophams, Mr. Davis, Clarissa Perry, everybody for a quarter of a mile up and down the street, and by now the company would be gathered and the tree lighted.  She could keep watch alone, the only sound being that of the children’s soft breathing in the next room.

Letty had longed to go to the festival herself, but old Clarissa Perry, who cared for the twins now and then in Letty’s few absences, had a niece who was going to “speak a piece,” and she yearned to be present and share in the glory; so Letty was kept at home as she had been numberless other times during the three years of her vicarious motherhood.

The night was mild again, as in the year before.  The snow lay like white powder on the hard earth; the moon was full, and the street was a length of dazzling silence.  The lighted candle was in the parlor window, shining toward the meeting-house, the fire burned brightly on the hearth, the front door was ajar.  Letty wrapped her old cape round her shoulders, drew her hood over her head, and seating herself at the window repeated under her breath:—­

    “My door is on the latch to-night,
      The hearth-fire is aglow. 
    I seem to hear swift passing feet,
      The Christ Child in the snow.

    “My heart is open wide to-night
      For stranger, kith, or kin;
    I would not bar a single door
      Where Love might enter in!”

And then a footstep, drawing ever nearer, sounded crunch, crunch, in the snow.  Letty pushed her chair back into the shadow.  The footstep halted at the gate, came falteringly up the path, turned aside, and came nearer the window.  Then a voice said:  “Don’t be frightened Letty, it’s David!  Can I come in?  I haven’t any right to, except that it’s Christmas Eve.”

That, indeed, was the magic, the all-comprehending phrase that swept the past out of mind with one swift stroke:  the acknowledgment of unworthiness, the child-like claim on the forgiving love that should be in every heart on such a night as this.  Resentment melted away like mist before the sun.  Her deep grievance—­where had it gone?  How could she speak anything but welcome?  For what was the window open, the fire lighted, the door ajar, the guiding candle-flame, but that Love, and David, might enter in?

There were few words at first; nothing but close-locked hands and wet cheeks pressed together.  Then Letty sent David into the children’s room by himself.  If the twins were bewitching when awake, they were nothing short of angelic when asleep.

[Illustration:  “I NEVER THOUGHT OF THEM AS MY CHILDREN BEFORE”]