Said Doris's angel, "Can they see and live?"
"Look," said Gwendolen's angel. "They're lighting the candles." And it was just at that moment that a young man, shabbier even than Beardy Ned, turned into Peter Street. But for his presence the street was empty. Doris's angel was the first to see him. He lifted his head and spoke a Name, and slowly the others filed out after him. Down the front steps and along the pavement they made a lane of angels. But the door was shut, and deep in their hearts was the dreadful fear that it mightn't be opened.
Then Uncle Joe struck another match and lit the last candle on the tree, and Marian's daddy picked up one of the parcels and turned it over to find the name on it. Smiling in her chair, old Miss Hubbard envied the luckier women who had had children. Half in shadow, between Marian and Gwendolen, stood Lord Barrington with his hawk-like face. There came a knock at the front door. Cuthbert, who was nearest to it, turned and opened it. He saw a young man in shabby clothes, and there was no beauty in him that he should desire him. He stood there smiling in the outside darkness.
"May I come in?" he asked, and Cuthbert changed his mind. Everything beautiful that he had ever seen shone into his heart from the young man's eyes.
"Yes, rather," said Cuthbert. "We're having a party."
His eyes sought his mother's.
"Mummy, here's somebody else."
Everybody turned round as the young man entered. The candles on the olive tree shed their light upon him. All but the blind painter looked into his eyes. Each saw the thing in them that he wanted most. Marian and Gwendolen and Cuthbert and Doris, not wanting anything in particular, only saw vaguely all that they hoped to be when they should have become grown-up men and women. So did Edward and so did Pepita; but Christopher Mark saw a celestial rabbit; and Percy and Agnes, holding each other's hand, saw the darlingest of babies. What Beardy Ned saw you can guess, and what Lord Barrington saw was Truth; and the blind painter heard the angels singing the song that explains every other song.
Then the young man stooped for a moment over the little olive-tree.
"Make them happy," he said, and then he was gone; and though nobody saw them, of course, the guardian angels came and stood again in their accustomed places. Marian turned impulsively to Lord Barrington.