ANGELA'S CHRISTMAS.
BY JULIA SCHAYER.
"Then it is 'yes,' father dear?" said Angela, looking across the breakfast table with a smile. It was her mother's smile, and the girl had filled her mother's vacant chair for more than a year.
The eyes of the father and daughter met, and Angela knew, before a word was said, that she had conquered.
"I hate to see you at your age, beginning to worry over these things," Ephraim Frazier said, regretfully. "Let the old women take care of the charities, dear. You keep on dancing in the sunshine a while longer, daughter."
Angela's smile grew graver, but not less sweet.
"I am twenty, dear," she said. "Too old to dance all the time, and I cannot help thinking, you know. And—it's no use, papa dear! I must do something! It is 'yes,' isn't it?"
"You are sure you won't mind being criticised and ridiculed?"
"Quite sure!" answered Angela.