“I will go out,” she thought, “into the light. Perhaps I shall dare to go in somewhere. The neighbors have been so kind to me, but I’m not used to them as I was to the dear mother. I will wish them a ‘Merry Christmas,’ and they will give me something to eat. Then, perhaps, I can sleep, and go away in my dreams to the beautiful land where it is warm with God’s pleasant sunshine.”
Taking from the shelf a faded shawl and torn bonnet, which had been the mother’s, she fastened them on as well as she could. But they were too large; it was all of no use, they would slip off again.
As she opened the door of her chamber, a great draught of wind rushed in from the street. Some one was coming in at the common staircase. She heard merry voices and footsteps on the stairs. She drew back into the darkness of her own room with shrinking timidity.
Very strange it was to her the cheery laughing, yet she had been as light-hearted once, but it seemed a great while ago.
When the sound of voices died away, she stole softly down the stairs to the door of the great front room, which had always been the grand place to her. Of all the neighbors, the woman in this best room had been most kind to her and the poor mother in her sickness.
The little cold fingers gave a timid knock, but, within, the father and mother were talking, and the little ones laughing so loud, that no one said the welcome “Come in,” or came to open the door.
The cold winds whistled through the uncovered halls of the tenement house, and the child stood waiting with chattering teeth, and feet and hands so benumbed that she thought it would be better out in the street. There she could run and warm herself.
It was snowing fast, and the feathery flakes fell all over the worn shawl, covering its faded colors with soft white down; over the great bonnet that would fall back upon her neck; and over the rich, golden-brown curls, that were left bare to the storm.
As she ran on, the streets grew lighter, and on each side of the way were gay shops, with great windows filled with a thousand beautiful things. How much better it was than staying in the dark attic-room alone; and she thought, if she were not so cold and hungry, she could have quite enjoyed it.
There was a great jolly man walking on before her, humming a song. Presently he stopped to look in at a shop window, and she read in his broad, pleasant face that his heart was kind and loving. So, without stopping to dread it, she ran up to him, saying, “Please, sir, I wish you a merry Christmas.”