luted, if they touched them now. He would not tell her of this: he would cut off his hand rather than talk to her of this, let her know such things were in the world. So pure and saintly she was, his little wife! a homely little body, but with the cleanest, most loving heart, doing her Master's will humbly. The cobbler's own veins were full of Scotch blood, as pure indignant as any knight's of the Holy Greal. He wiped his hand, as though a leper had tainted it.

Passing down Church Street, the old bell rang out the hour. All day he had fancied its tone had gathered a lighter, more delicate sweetness with every chime. The Christ-child was coming; the world held up its hands adoring; all that was needed of men was to love Him, and rejoice. Its tone was different now: there was a brutal cry of pain in the ponderous voice that shook the air,-a voice saying something to God, unintelligible to him. He thrust out the thought of that woman with a curse: he had so wanted to have a good day, to feel how great and glad the world was, and to come up close to Christ with Jinny and the baby! He did soon forget the vileness there behind, going down the streets; they were so cozy and friendly-hearted, the parlor-windows opening out red and cheerfully, as is the custom in Southern and Western towns; they said "Happy Christmas" to every passer-by. The owners, going into the houses, had a hearty word for Adam. "Well, Craig, how goes it?" or, "Fine, frosty weather, Sir." It quite heartened the cobbler. He made shoes for most of these people, and whether men are free and equal or not, any cobbler will have a reverence for the man he has shod.

So Adam trotted on, his face a little redder, and his stooped chest, especially next the basket, in quite a glow. There she was, clear out in the snow, waiting for him by the curb-stone. How she took hold of the basket, and Adam made believe she was carrying the whole

weight of it! How the fire-light struck out furiously through the Turkey - red curtains, so as to show her to him quicker!-to show him the snug coffee-colored dress, and the bits of cherry ribbon at her throat, to show him how the fair curly hair was tucked back to leave the rosy ears bare he thought so dainty,-to show him how young she was, how faded and worn and tired-out she was, how hard the years had been, – to show him how his great love for her was thickening the thin blood with life, making a child out of the thwarted woman,- to show him this more than all,

this that his soul watched for, breathless, day and night—that she loved him, that she knew nothing better than the ignorant, loving heart, the horny hands that had taken her hungry fate to hold, and made of it a color and a fragrance. "Christmas is coming, little woman!" Of course it was. If it had not taken the whole world into its embrace yet, there it was compacted into a very glow of love and warmth and coziness in that snuggest of rooms, and in that very Jinny and Baby,- - Christmas itself, especially when he kissed her, and she blushed and laughed, the tears in her eyes, and went fussing for that queer roll of white flannel.

Adam took off his coat: he always went at the job of nursing the baby in his shirt-sleeves. The anxious sweat used to break on his forehead before he was through. He got its feet to the fire. "I 'm dead sure that much is right," he used to say. Jinny put away the bundles, wishing to herself Mrs. Perkins would happen in to see them one did n't like to be telling what they had for dinner, but if it was known accidentally- You poets, whose brains have quite snubbed and sent to Coventry your stomachs, never could perceive how the pudding was a poem to the cobbler and his wife, how a very actual sense of the live goodness of Jesus was in it, how its spicy steam contained all the cordial cheer and jollity they had missed in

meaningless days of the year. Then she brought her sewing-chair, and sat down, quite idle.

"No work for to-night! I'll teach you how to keep Christmas, Janet, woman!"

Or

It was her first, one might say. phan girls that go about from house to house sewing, as Jinny had done, don't learn Christmas by heart year by year. It was a new experience: she was taking it in, one would think, to look at her, with all her might, with the earnest blue eyes, the shut-up brain behind the narrow forehead, the loving heart: a contracted tenement, that heart, bythe-by, adapted for single lodgers. She was n't quite sure that Christmas was not, after all, a relic of Papistry, - for Jinny was a thorough Protestant: a Christian, as far as she understood Him, with a keen interest in the Indian missions. "Let us begin in our own country," she said, and always prayed for the Sioux just after Adam and Baby. In fact, if we are all parts of God's temple, Jinny was a very essential, cohesive bit of mortar. Adam had a wider door for his charity: it took all the world in, he thought,—though the preachers did enter with a shove, as we know. However, this was Christmas: the word took up all common things, the fierce wind without, the clean hearth, the modest color on her cheek, the very baby, and made of them one grand, sweet poem, that sang to the man the same story the angels told eighteen centuries ago: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men."

Sitting there in the evenings, Adam was the talker: such a fund of anecdote he had! Jinny never could hear the same story too often. To-night there was a bit of a sigh in them: his heart was tender about the Christmases at home, when he and Nelly were little chubs together, and hung up their stockings regularly every Christmas eve.

"Twins, Nelly an' me was, oldest of all. When I was bound to old Lowe,

it went hard, ef I could n't scratch together enough for a bit of ribbon-bow or a ring for Nell, come Christmas. She used to sell the old flour-barrels an' rags, an' have her gift all ready by my plate that mornin': never missed. I never hed a sweetheart then."

Jinny laid her hand on his knee. "Ye 'r' glad o' that, little woman? Well, well! I did n't care for women, only Ellen. She was the only livin' thing as come near me. I gripped on to her like death, havin' only her. But she-hed more nor me."

ly.

Jinny knew the story well.

"She went away with him?" soft

"Yes, she did. I don't blame her. She was young, unlarned. No man cared for our souls. So, when she loved him well, she thort God spoke to her. So she was tuk from me. She

went away."

He patted the baby, his skinny hand. all shaking. Jinny took it in hers, and, leaning over, stroked his hair.

it

"You've hed hard trouble, to turn gray like this."

"No trouble like that, woman, when he left her."

"Left her! An' then she was tired of God, an' of livin', or dyin'. So as she loved him! You know, my husband. As I love you. An' he left her! What wonder what she did? All alone! So as she loved him still! God shut His eyes to what she did."

The yellow, shaggy face was suddenly turned from her. The voice choked.

"Did He, little woman? You know."

"So, when she was a-tryin' to forget, the only way she knew, God sent an angel to bring her up, an' have her soul washed clean."

Adam laughed bitterly.

"That's not the way men told the story, child. I got there six months after to New York, you know. I found in an old paper jes' these words: 'The woman, Ellen Myers, found dead yesterday on one of the docks, was

identified. Died of starvation and whiskey. That was Nelly, as used to hang up her stockin' with me. Christian people read that. But nobody cried but me."

“They're tryin' to help them now at the Five Points there."

"God help them as helps others this Christmas night! But it's not for such as you to talk of the Five Points, Janet," rousing himself. "What frabbit me to talk of Nelly the night? Someways she's been beside me all day, as if she was grippin' me by the sleeve, beggin', dumb-like."

The moody frown deepened.

"The baby! See, Adam, it 'll waken! Quick, man!"

And Adam, with a start, began hushing it after the fashion of a chimpanzee. The old bell rang out another hour: how genial and loving it was!

"Nine o'clock! Let me up, boys!" -and Lot Tyndal hustled them aside from the steps of the concert-hall. They made way for her: her thin, white arms could deal furious blows, they knew from experience. Besides, they had seen her, when provoked, fall in some cellar-door in a livid dead spasm. They were afraid of her. Her filthy, wet skirt flapped against her feet, as she went up; she pulled her flaunting bonnet closer over her head. There was a small room at the top of the stairs, a sort of greenroom for the performers. Lot shoved the door open and went in. Madame

was there, the prima-donna, if you chose to call her so: the rankest bloom of fifty summers, in white satin and pearls: a faded dahlia. Women hinted that the fragrance of the dahlia had not been healthful in the world; but they crowded to hear her: such a wonderful contralto! The manager, a thin old man, with a hook-nose, and kindly, uncertain smile, stood by the stove, with a group of gentlemen about him. The wretch from the street went up to him, unsteadily.

"Lot 's drunk," one door-keeper whispered to another.

"No; the Devil's in her, though, like a tiger, to-night."

Yet there was a certain grace and beauty in her face, as she looked at the manager, and spoke low and sud

den.

"I'm not a beggar. I want money, - honest money. It's Christmas eve. They say you want a voice for the chorus, in the carols. Put me where I'll be hid, and I'll sing for you."

The manager's hand fell from his watch-chain. Storrs, a young lawyer of the place, touched his shoulder.

"Don't look so aghast, Pumphrey. Let her sing a ballad to show you. Her voice is a real curiosity.”

Madame- - looked dubiously across the room her black maid had whispered to her. Lot belonged to an order she had never met face to face before: one that lives in the suburbs of hell.

"Let her sing, Pumphrey." "If" looking anxiously to the lady.

"Certainly," drawled that type of purity. "If it is so curious, her

voice."

66

Sing, then," nodding to the girl. There was a strange fierceness under her dead, gray eye.

"Do you mean to employ me tonight?"

Her tones were low, soft, from her teeth out, as I told you. Her soul was chained, below: a young girl's soul, hardly older than your little daughter's there, who sings Sunday-school hymns for you in the evenings. Yet one fancied, if this girl's soul were let loose, it would utter a madder cry than any fiend in hell.

"Do you mean to employ me?" biting her finger-ends until they bled.

"Don't be foolish, Charlotte," whispered Storrs. "You may be thankful you 're not sent to jail instead. But sing for him. He'll give you something, may-be."

She did not damn him, as he expected, stood quiet a moment, her eyelids

to the manager.

Nothing pitiful in her voice. It was too late for that.

"He would n't touch me: I'm not fit. I want help. Give me some honest work."

She stopped and put her hand on his coat-sleeve. The child she might have been, and never was, looked from her face that moment.

"No. Let me go."

She went through the crowd out into the vacant street, down to the wharf, humming some street-song,—from habit, it seemed; sat down on a pile of lumber, picking the clay out of the holes in her shoes. It was dark: she did not see that a man had followed her, until his white-gloved hand touch

The manager's thin face reddened. "God bless my soul! what shall I do, Mr. Storrs ?"

The young man's thick lip and thicker eyelid drooped. He laughed, and whispered a word or two.

"Yes," gruffly, being reassured. "There's a policeman outside. Joe, take her out, give her in charge to him." The negro motioned her before him with a billet of wood he held. She laughed. Her laugh had gained her the name of "Devil Lot."

face growing red.

Lot got up, pushed off her bonnet. He looked at her.

"My God! No older than Susy," he said.

By a gas-lamp she saw his face, the trouble in it.

"Well?" biting her finger - ends again.

"I'm sorry for you, I".

Why?" sharply. "There's more like me. Fifteen thousand in the city

of New York. I came from there." "Not like you, child.”

"Yes, like me," with a gulping noise in her throat. "I'm no better than the rest."

She sat down and began digging in the snow, holding the sullen look desperately on her face. The kind word had reached the tortured soul beneath, and it struggled madly to be free. “Can I help you?” No answer.

"There's something in your face makes me heart-sick. I've a little girl of your age."

She looked up quickly.
"Who are you, girl?”

She stood up again, her child's face

white, the dark river rolling close by her feet.

"I'm Lot. I always was what you see. My mother drank herself to death in the Bowery dens. I learned my trade there, slow and sure."

It was Devil Lot looked over at the dark river now.

He turned away to go up the wharf. No help for so foul a thing as this. He dared not give it, if there were. She had sunk down with her old, sullen

My God! I had to live!"

What was to be done? Whose place was it to help her? he thought. He loathed to touch her. But her soul might be as pure and groping as little Susy's.

"I wish I could help you, girl," he said. "But I'm a moral man. I have to be careful of my reputation. Besides, I could n't bring you under the same roof with my child.”

She was quiet now.

"I know. There 's not one of those Christian women up in the town yonder 'ud take Lot into their kitchens to give her a chance to save herself from hell. Do you think I care? It's not for myself I'm sorry. It's too late."

Yet as this child, hardly a woman, gave her soul over forever, she could not keep her lips from turning white.

"There's thousands more of us. Who cares? Do preachers and them as sits in the grand churches come into our dens to teach us better?"

Pumphrey grew uneasy.

"Who taught you to sing?" he said.

The girl started. She did not answer for a minute.

“What did you say?" she said.
"Who taught you?"

Her face flushed warm and dewy; her eyes wandered away, moistened and dreamy; she curled her hair softly on her finger.

"I'd I'd rather not speak of that," she said, low. "He's dead now. He called me-Lottie," looking up with a sudden, childish smile. "I was only fifteen then."

"How old are you now?”

Four years more. But I tell you

I've seen the world in that time."

Why, this was her only chance of help from all the creatures God had made!

"Let me tell you," she said, holding by a fire-plug. "It's not for myself I care. It's for Benny. That 's my little brother. I've raised him. He loves me; he don't know. I've kept him alone allays. I don't pray, you know; but when Ben puts his white little arms about me 't nights and kisses me, somethin' says to me, 'God loves you, Lot.' So help me God, that boy shall never know what his sister was! He's gettin' older now. I want work, before he can know. Now, will you help me?" "How can I?"

The whole world of society spoke in the poor manager.

"I'll give you money."

Her face hardened.