“Kind friends have remembered you this holiday season,” she said.  “Each of you has received gifts.  Now I hope you want to pass the kindness on.  There is a negro orphanage in town, and I happen to know that its funds are so limited that after providing needfuls, food, fuel, and clothing, there is nothing left this year for Christmas cheer.  Aren’t you willing to share your good things with those poor children?  Won’t each of you bring some of your old toys to the sitting-room at four o’clock and help fill a Christmas box to send the little orphans?”

The children responded eagerly, Anne among the first.  They hurried to their rooms and rummaged busily through their boxes and drawers, collecting old dolls, ragged picture-books, and broken toys.

Anne opened her drawer and then shut it quickly and sat down dolefully on the bed-side, swinging her feet.

“What are you going to give, Anne?” asked one of the other girls.

“Dunno,” was the brief answer.

A mighty struggle was going on in her heart.  She had no old picture-books, games, nor toys.  She had nothing to give—­unless—­except—­there were the gifts she had received at ‘Roseland’ this morning—­the shining dominoes, the dainty handkerchief, the ribbon-tied candy box, the book with fascinating pictures and pages that looked so interesting.  It was so long since she had had any pretty, useless things that it put a lump in her throat merely to think of giving them up.  But she had promised and she must give something to those poor little black orphans.  Which of her treasures should it be?  When she tried to decide on any one, that one seemed the dearest and most desirable of all.  At last in despair she gathered all her gifts—­dominoes, handkerchief, book, candy—­in her apron, ran with them to the sitting-room and dumped them on the table before Miss Farlow, with “Here! for the old orphans.”

Miss Farlow opened her mouth but before words could come Anne was gone.  She crouched down with Honey-Sweet between her bed and the wall and sobbed as if her heart would break.

“I wouldn’t mind so much,” she explained to Honey-Sweet, “I wouldn’t mind so much if I could have taken out one teeny piece of chocolate with the darling little silver tongs.  I haven’t had a box of candy for months and months.  And, oh!  Honey-Sweet, I read just three chapters in that beautiful book, and now I’ll never, never know what became of that dear little boy.”

At teatime Anne, red-eyed and unsmiling, met Miss Farlow on the stairs.

“Ah!  Anne Lewis,” said the lady, looking over her spectacles.  “You are a generous child.  I only asked and expected some old toys.  It was generous of you to bring your pretty new gifts.  But I hardly feel that you ought to give away the Christmas presents your friends selected for you to enjoy.  I think you’d better take them back.”  Anne’s face shone like the sun coming from behind a cloud.  “Instead, you can give—­oh! some old thing—­give that rag doll to put in the box for the little orphans.”  The sun went under a dark cloud.