"Trouble?" said the Angel, puzzled. "Do you call it trouble? Do you not see what it has done for that heartless youth? It brought his good moment. Perhaps he will be a different man after this. And as for the child; he was made happy by something that would otherwise have been wasted, and he has gained a friend who will not forget him. Trouble! And do you think you did it?" He laughed knowingly.
"I certainly did," said Miss Terry firmly.
"But it was I, yes I, the Christmas Spirit, who put it into your head to do what you did. You may not believe it, but so it was. You too, even you, Angelina, could not quite escape the influence of the Christmas Spirit, and so these things have happened. But now let us see what became of the third experiment."
CHAPTER X
NOAH AGAIN
n the street of candles a woman dressed all in black had picked up the poor old Noah's ark and was looking at it wildly. She was a widow who had just lost her only child, a little son, and she was in a state of morbid bitterness bordering on distraction.
When the second woman with the two little ones came up and begged for the toy, something hard and sullen and cruel rose in the widow's heart, and she refused angrily to give up the thing. She hated those two boys who had been spared when her own was taken. She would not make them happy.
"No, you shall not have it," she cried, clutching the Noah's ark fiercely. "I will destroy it."