Candy, nuts, and fruit were there in abundance, open to all, while the children paused,—awed, under a deluge of toys such as their eyes had never beheld the likeness of before.
Nor was this all,—for somewhere about that Tree, hung a document, which being delivered, revealed to Miss Norma Bonkowski that she was now the owner and proprietor of that same Costumer's establishment she had so coveted,—while a most innocent and ordinary looking little book bearing Mary Carew's name told the secret of a sum of money safely in bank, so sufficient that never again need that grim phantom, the poor-house, threaten to overshadow the end as it had the beginning of Mary's life.
As for Mrs. O'Malligan,—who had so successfully betrayed the secrets of her neighbors, she was the most surprised of all to find her own discovered. For, learning that the O'Malligans' savings toward "a house of our own over th' river wid a goat an' a bit of a pig-sty," still lacked a small sum of being sufficient, the Angel had accordingly completed the amount.
And then the Tenement, weary with the accumulations of pleasure and surprise, had taken itself home.
No one had been forgotten. Even the sixty little Kindergartens, through the combined munificence of Mr. Dilke and the Angel, were, according to the gloomy prophecies of 'Tildy Peggins as she waited upon them at the feast, "a stuffed to their little stomicks' heverlastin' undoin'." And Old G. A. R., from the depths of a new arm-chair, tried to solace his lonely old heart with whiffs of fragrant tobacco from a wonderful new pipe.
Neither was Joey forgotten in this time of rejoicing, for St. Luke's was made glad that Christmas Day when the Fourth Regiment endowed a child cot's "In memory of The Little Major."
Even Rosy O'Brien, whose one act of unfaithfulness had been so terribly punished, was made happy by the news her little Angelique brought her, that now since she was freed of her wearing secret, her health would begin to return. And in time it did, and long after, when her tongue could again frame its words, she dictated such a letter of contrition and remorse to Mrs. Breaux, that that gentle heart's last feelings against her were forgotten. In this letter, too, the poor girl related the happenings of the afternoon when she left the Hotel.
Allured by the shop windows, she and her charge had stopped so often that on reaching the river, they learned of the accident which had just taken place in mid-river. At this, the girl had hurried back and crossed by the bridge.
On reaching the Tenement finally, and finding her sister's door locked, and beginning to feel anxious about returning, on the impulse of the moment, that she might go down the faster, being breathless with the climb up the steep and broken stairs, she set the tired and sleepy child down on her shawl in the adjoining room, whose door stood open, and hurried down to find Mrs. O'Malligan and beg a scrap of paper to write a few lines to put under her sister's door.