"Why, the Christmas Angel; our Guardian Angel, Tom. All these years I kept him in the play box, and I was going to burn him up. But I couldn't do it, Tom. How wonderful it is!"
They sat down before the fire and she began to tell him the whole story. But she interrupted herself to send for Norah, who came to her, mystified and half scandalized by the greeting which she had seen those two oldsters exchange.
"This is my brother Tom, Norah, who has come back," she said. "I believe it is not too late to make some preparation for Christmas Day. The stores will still be open. Run out and order things for a grand occasion, Norah. And—O Norah!" a sudden remembrance came to her. "If you have time, will you please get some toys and pretty things such as a little girl would like; a little girl of about ten, with my complexion,—I mean, with yellow hair and blue eyes. We may have a little guest to-morrow."
"Yes'm," said Norah, moving like one in a dream.
"A guest?" exclaimed Tom. And Miss Terry told him about Mary.
"I love little girls," said Tom, "especially little girls with yellow hair and blue eyes, such as you used to have, Angelina."
"You will like Mary, then," said Miss Terry, with a pretty pink flush of pleasure in her cheeks.
"I shall like her, if she comes," amended Tom, who, man-like, received with reservations the account of a vision vouchsafed not unto him.
"She will come," said Miss Terry with her old positiveness, glancing towards the window where the Christmas Angel hung.
Then arose the sound of singing outside the house. The passing choristers had spied the quaint window, now the only one in the street which remained lighted:—