She was not talking to any one in particular, but just to herself. She had been sitting for quite awhile by the parlor window reading her Bible. Sometimes her eyes were fastened on the page, and sometimes when a strange step came down the street, she would glance up hurriedly, almost in an eager way, as if she were watching for some one. Then, when she saw who it was, her eyes would drop again on the book in a disappointed fashion. I knew what she would do next. Very slowly she would turn the pages right to the middle of the Bible, where a picture lay between the leaves.

"Isn't that father, grandma?" I asked, anxiously, leaning against her knee.

"No, Rhoda," she said, in that decisive way of hers.

I hung closer over the picture to make real sure.

It looked so like father when he was a little boy that I thought she must be mistaken. Yet somehow it was different. This little boy was fairer. There was a curl of hair on the page, a light-brown curl with red glints in it, and a tiny wreath made of pressed lilacs which once upon a time he had joined together, flower by flower, out in our front garden. I could almost see him doing it, while the wind blew through those brown curls.

"Oh, I do hope that he isn't grown up!" I cried, quickly.

People had such an astonishing way of growing up fast. Why, even Joseph in his pretty new coat in the Bible was not a little boy any longer! And I had always so longed to play with Joseph.

Grandmother did not tell me anything more about the picture. She took it out of my hand, and put it back on the page beside the curl and the faded lilac ring. Then she closed the book tightly; but when I ran into the parlor five minutes later to announce a visitor the picture was out again on her lap.

"Evelyn is coming, grandma!" I cried.

The tall young lady who followed me into the room was grandmother's great friend, and, also, in a way she was mine. I loved her because she was so beautiful; but grandmother loved her because they both liked a man named Frank. He was engaged to Evelyn. I had heard my mother say so.

"Is there any news?" grandmother asked, eagerly.

She had risen out of her chair and looked startled.

Evelyn went up to her with a letter in her hand.

"Frank is quite well," she said, "and very busy. Would you like to see his letter?"

Grandmother hesitated. She almost turned her back upon Evelyn.

"No," she answered, slowly. "No. When he writes a letter to me, I will read it. Not before."

"Oh, you are hard on Frank," Evelyn protested. "How can he write to you? Didn't you say you would have nothing more to do with him, unless he gave up his profession?"

"Profession! Has an actor a profession?" grandmother cried. "This is the first time I ever heard it called by that name. I said he was to choose between his mother and a child's mad whim, and he made his choice."

She picked up the picture and looked at it with tears in her eyes.

"I could forgive him anything but acting," she said. "Sometimes I think I could even forgive him that. I do so long to see him again."

Evelyn slipped her arm about grandmother.

"He will come back," she cried, consolingly.

"Never," grandmother replied, with a despairing glance at the empty street. "Don't I know him, Evelyn? Man and boy? He is as stubborn as I am."

"Would the little boy play with me, grandma, if he came back?" I asked, excitedly.

They both looked at me, but Evelyn was the only one who smiled.

"Perhaps," she said. "He used to be very fond of you."

After that I was always watching for the little boy. Every morning when I got up I looked out of the window to see if he were not coming in our gate. And the last thing before I went to bed, I looked out carefully again. I thought that I should know him by his hair, and I felt how lovely it would be if he would only come at Christmas time. Christmas was not going to be so nice that year as usual. I did not think that I should get anything. There were lots of presents in the house for other children, even my little brother and sister, but somehow there did not seem to be any for Rhoda!

"Father," I said, one morning, "there's a very pretty book in your top drawer. A child's book. I wonder whose it is?"

He was quite busy reading his paper, but he answered me at once.

"That's for a little friend of mine," he declared. "It's a secret."

"Oh! Is she a good girl, father?"

He glanced at me and laughed.

"Sometimes she's awfully good," he answered.

Then it was not for me. Nobody ever seemed to think that I was good, not even when I was trying my best. It must be grand to be good! Just think of being born that way, so that you could not help it, but went on growing better and better until you died! There was a little girl down the street like that. We played together on sunny days. I found it very hard to play with any one who was so good.

"And sometimes," my father went on, still with that smile in his eyes, "sometimes she's so dreadfully bad that I'm really shocked!"

"Oh!" I said again.

I had seen my father shocked. When he was shocked, he always laughed very hard.

"Has it pictures, father?" I asked, meekly, trying to turn the subject.

"No. My little friend doesn't care about pictures," he answered, indifferently.

Then it was not for me. I was very fond of pictures. Everybody knew that. It did seem queer that in all the many packages which he brought home, night after night,—round ones, and square ones, and even some with mysterious humpy corners,—there should not be a single thing for Rhoda! And Christmas was coming faster and faster.

Evelyn, too, had all manner of pretty presents laid by for other little girls, quite strange little girls, who did not love her at all so far as I could see, but she never said a word about my present; not even one day when she called me into her house and opened her parlor door. She opened it very softly, as if there were company, and she put her finger on her lip that I should not speak.

There was company. Inside the room was filled with dolls! They sat in rows on the sofa and on the piano, they lay in careless heaps on the chairs and tables; blue-eyed dolls and black-eyed dolls, some that went promptly to sleep when you laid them down, some in Japanese dresses, and some that wore long clothes and caps like sure enough babies. We went about solemnly, hand in hand, and looked at them all. They stared back as if they wanted a mother, and one on the center-table, a queen of a doll with earrings in her ears, held out her arms to come to me!

"Whom do you think they're all for?" Evelyn asked, gayly. "Guess."

I held her closer by the hand and gazed about me. I was very fond of dolls. I had never had enough. I believed that once or twice I had mentioned the fact. I drew a long breath. Just suppose—

"They're for orphans," Evelyn cried, quickly. "You know what orphans are, don't you, Rhoda? They are poor children who haven't any mothers or fathers to buy them dolls! It's a very sad thing to be an orphan."

I glanced about me again. The queen was very beautiful.

"Will they be good to them?" I questioned, wistfully.

I had heard of people whipping dolls! And once a little boy had drowned a doll! His sister's! It was dreadful!

"Oh, I'm sure this doll is going to be spoiled," Evelyn answered, with her hand on the queen.

I looked from her to the great doll with shy admiration. They both had the same fair hair, and the same pink cheeks and the same gray eyes. Their faces were just like flowers.

"I think her name is Evelyn, too," I said.

I had always thought that Evelyn liked me, but that day I was sure of it. We had a long talk in a big chair about all the things which I wanted for Christmas. She said that I was surely to come Christmas morning and see the orphans get their dolls. Somebody named Santa Claus would be there. I had heard of Santa Claus before, but only in a general sort of a way. He seemed to be a very kindly sort of person who gave away dolls by the hundred, sometimes to orphans, and sometimes just to little girls who needed them. It was a question how much you had to need them.

At the very last Evelyn gave me a message to deliver.

"Rhoda," she said, earnestly, "tell grandmother that there is good news. What she was wishing for is really going to happen!"

She hugged me up closer to her.

"Oh, what a Christmas this will be!" she cried. "We are all going to get what we want, all of us, even Rhoda!"

Afterwards she changed. When I went out of the door she drew me back and looked at me anxiously, almost coldly.

"Rhoda, don't tell grandmother anything," she said. "It might be a mistake. I wouldn't have her disappointed for the world!"

I did not want grandmother to be disappointed, but still when I went back into our house and saw her sitting by the window, I felt that I should like to tell her some good news. Just that once. She looked so frail and old, and I had never noticed before how white her hair was.

My mother was very tender with grandmother. Every morning she would send her three children, the twins and me, to kiss her, and when my father came home at night she would send him to lean on the back of the big chair, and look down at the closed Bible. Grandmother never took the picture out when my father was there. She never even listened to the people passing by outside. She would talk to him about other things in which neither of them took much interest, until he would go away, half sadly, half angrily.

"She is the most absurd woman who ever lived," he told my mother. "Here is Frank winning laurels by the dozen, and, on account of her stupid prejudice, she won't listen to his name. Does she expect to keep this thing up forever?"

"She is thinking of him all the time," my mother said, quietly. "She loves him."

"I know she loves him!" my father cried. "She loves him better than she does me. I was always the one who didn't count! Always."

My mother laid her hand upon his arm and stopped him.

"Hush, Robert," she said.

Her eyes wandered over me sitting on my stool by the fireplace, and passed to little brother Dick playing with his blocks.

"Who can judge a mother's heart?" she questioned, softly, and then turned upon him with a demand that was almost wrathful. "Have you nothing to be thankful for," she cried, "that you grudge him a thought at Christmas time!"

My mother always took grandmother's part. She seemed to understand grandmother better than my father did. Once I heard her say that the curl in the Bible was like one of little Dick's. She laid it against his soft hair, and it matched, color and curl, as if it had been cut from his head. After that she was even kinder to grandmother than before.

Norah out in the kitchen was the happiest person in the house. Every night she wrote home to Ireland, and sometimes she laughed and sometimes she cried. I liked to hear about Ireland. I would climb upon the kitchen table and watch her write, and listen when she read bits of her letters to me. I knew all about Norah's people, and could call her brothers and sisters, and even her cousins, by name. She was sending money in her letter to buy her mother a new green plaid shawl for Christmas. She was, also, going to buy the priest a pig. Norah was worried about the priest. He gave away everything that he had to the poor of the parish, and went hungry all the time. After much thought she had decided on the present of a pig, as being a thing which the priest might keep for himself.

"Though they're that owdacious, Rhoda," she cried, in high wrath, "that I'm thinking they'll take the pig, too!"

"What would they do with the pig, Norah?" I asked, anxiously.

"Sure, they might eat it!" she answered, with a dark frown.

"Norah, what if you were to put a blue ribbon about its neck?" I suggested.

She went into fits of laughter and hugged me.

"To think that you've niver even seen a pig!" she cried. "To think of it dressed up! The innocent!"

It was on that same night that with a great parade of secrecy she showed me something hidden in the knife tray. It was a doll's hat made of blue velvet, and trimmed with lovely white feathers, such as came out of the pillows when Norah thumped them in the morning. Right in front there was a big brass pin that shone like gold. Norah watched me while I examined the hat, breathlessly. She seemed much pleased with my admiration, and turned it around and around on one of her big fingers that I might decide on the prettiest side, which was, of course, the one with the brass pin.

"But whom is it for, Norah?" I asked.

"It's for a small frind of mine," she explained, with an air of deep mystery.

It was very strange. The dolls and the picture-book, even the hat, were all for somebody's little friend, never for me.

"I wonder what I'll get?" I said, weakly.

"Why don't you ask Santa Claus, dear?" Norah inquired.

I looked at her quickly. That was Evelyn's friend.

"Who is he, Norah?" I questioned.

She threw up her arms in the air.

"And have I niver told you about him?" she cried. "The quare ould chap that lives up in the chimney!"

"Up in the chimney, Norah! Isn't he hot?" I demanded, in astonishment.

"Faith, there's no fire could warm him," Norah answered, lowering her voice mysteriously.

Then her finger went up in apparent alarm.

"Hush! He's listening! He wants to know which are the good byes and gurrls. When Christmas morning comes the good ones will get prisents. For he owns all the prisents in the world! And the bad ones will get nought, barring switches!"

I crept a little closer to Norah, and took a firm hold on her apron. It was very sudden news. Had I always been good?

"But the good childer," Norah went on, with a reassuring smile, "and you are good, Rhoda, have only to ask for whativer they want at the parlor fireplace!"

I could not keep away from the fireplace after that. Every time that I went into the parlor I peeped up the black bricks, and though I never saw anything but the blue sky far, far above, I felt quite sure that he was there. I made little scenes in my mind of the things which I should say to him, and the things which he would say to me, after he became convinced of my goodness. In the meanwhile I was good, oh, so good! and best of all in the parlor. Later, I meant to ask for the queen doll, and the pretty book, and the little hat trimmed with the white feathers and the beautiful brass pin. Even if he could not give me just those ones, because they were promised, he might give me others. I felt that he could manage it in some way, if he were pleased with me. It was nice to know that he was partial to good girls.

Once I went so far as to speak his name.

"Mr. Santa Claus!" I called, politely, for it was best to be polite. "Oh, please, Mr. Santa Claus!"

A big piece of soot dropped down over the burning wood right at my feet. That was his way of showing that he heard! Then I was frightened, and would have run away but for a sudden sound. Somebody was crying! It was grandmother up in the corner of the sofa with the Bible on her knees. She did not see me at all. She did not know that I was there. I put my arms around her neck, and she looked up and talked to me quite as if I were a grown person.

"I want him so badly, Rhoda!" she said.

"Who is it, grandma?" I whispered.

"My little boy, Rhoda. He went away and he never came back again. I was not patient enough with him. Always be patient, my dear."

"Don't you cry, grandma," I said. "I'll get him back, dear grandma, if you won't cry."

She looked at me for a moment as if she almost believed me. I nodded confidently at her. I knew. There was a way, but only little Rhoda had thought of it as yet. If Norah had only told me sooner about Santa Claus!

After she had dried her eyes, and kissed me, and gone to her room, I put my plan into execution. I told Santa Claus all about it up the black bricks. He did not answer, but the soot fell softly, so I knew that he heard and would remember. It was no longer a question of dolls or books or even hats. I felt that the one thing which I wanted most in the world was just for grandmother's little boy to come home.

I did not hang up my stocking on Christmas eve. The twins hung up theirs,—two little podgy stockings side by side at the mantel-piece. Even quite a small stocking will hold candy, and I have known times when the very nicest present of all would be away down at the toe. My little Susan Sunshine, my littlest doll, came in the toe. I found her after I thought everything was out. I wondered whether Dick or Trixie would find a little Susan Sunshine.

"Why don't sister hang up her stocking?" Dick asked, anxiously.

"Is she bad?" Trixie inquired.

"I'm not bad," I declared, hastily, from my bed in the next room.

"Why don't you hang up your stocking, dear?" mother questioned.

"I don't want anything," I answered, miserably.

Afterwards I heard her talking to my father.

"I don't know what to make of Rhoda," I heard her say. "She won't hang up her stocking. I hope that she is not going to be sick. It would be dreadful to have one of the children sick at Christmas time. Her head is quite hot."

I felt my head. It was hot.

I lay awake for a long time thinking of things. I considered the twins and their stockings, and grandmother's delight in the morning. Somehow I had to think a great deal about grandmother in order to keep myself from crying. Grandmother did not know what I was doing for her. The little boy must be getting ready to come right now. Off in the distance I could hear sleigh-bells, perhaps his sleigh-bells, now near, now far away, and in the pauses between the soft throb of the organ over in the church, and a voice singing a hymn, the one that I knew about angels and the manger with the Child. It was very beautiful. I sighed a little, sleepily. After all I was happy.

Then in a moment it was day, bright day, and in the next room there was a confused murmur of voices and a hurried scamper of feet. Dick shouted excitedly. Somebody beat a drum with a low rumble like soldiers, not as a little boy would beat a drum, but as my father might if he were teaching a little boy. Somebody marched pitapat about the room, and somebody danced by the fireplace.

"Go back to your cribs," my mother cried, uneasily. "You'll get your death of cold!"

On the chair by the side of my bed there was a stocking, with queer knobby places, which meant oranges, and square places, which meant candy. Right on top there was a blue velvet hat trimmed with white feathers, and against the stocking there leant a picture-book. I looked at them incredulously. Santa Claus had not understood! Or else he had thought that I loved my presents better than I did my grandmother! I kissed the hat and the picture-book twice, and then I put them sternly back on the chair. I knew what I should do. Santa Claus would find that I meant what I said.

"Did you like the picture-book, Rhoda?" my father inquired at the breakfast table.

"Yes," I answered, hurriedly.

Norah smiled at me from the shelter of the kitchen door.

"How did my little frind like the hat?" she asked, in a stage whisper.

It seemed to me that there were some subjects which would not bear talking about.

They felt my head a great many times that morning, and even looked at my tongue.

"She acts so unlike herself," my mother said, anxiously. "You don't feel sick anywhere, do you, Rhoda?"

"No," I replied, huskily.

Grandmother evinced a sudden interest.

"I wouldn't let her go to Evelyn's," she said.

"But I want to go!" I cried, piteously.

"There, there," my father said, in a soothing way. "Of course you may go."

"Only you must take an iron pill first," my mother pleaded. "Just to please mother."

She did the pill up very neatly in a raisin, so that it did not look at all like a pill. My mother could make the most horrible things look nice,—such as cough syrup, with little specks of jelly floating on it like a pudding. Afterwards you might know by the taste that there had been something wrong, but you could never tell beforehand; not even though you might wonder at dessert being kindly offered for breakfast.

I took my pill meekly, and drank a glass of milk to please my father. Then after much consultation they put on my cloak, and let me go. I had the picture-book and the hat hidden under my arm as I went out the door, but nobody noticed.

Evelyn's house was farther down the street, not quite out of sight from our front gate, but still at a little distance. There were orphans going in when I came up,—orphans in decorous rows of twos; each little girl with a white apron hanging down under her cloak. They went in very quietly, not at all as if they were excited at the prospect. I felt that they could not know what was inside. I watched to see them dance when they passed the parlor door, but they only stared stolidly.

"A merry Christmas to all of you," a sonorous voice cried within.

I peeped in cautiously. There he was! That was Santa Claus. He stood by a beautiful tree at the top of the room. He had on a white fur coat, and there was a shaggy cap on his head. He smiled at us. It almost seemed that he smiled at me, little Rhoda Harcourt, as if he remembered the chimney! His arms were full of dolls, but I knew at first glance that I could never really like him. There was something about his face that made it impossible.

"These dolls are only for good girls," he said again, in a loud voice that had a muffled sound.

I slipped in closer. The orphans stared back at him unconcernedly. They were sure that they were good. One, a very sleepy orphan, put her head on her chair, and went fast to sleep in the most impolite way.

"Here, wake up!" the next orphan said, and slapped her.

She woke up and slapped her neighbor back, and was going to sleep again when Santa Claus called her name. It was Betsy. He gave Betsy the first doll. He was evidently quite satisfied with her behavior. I was much surprised.

The dolls went quickly after that, all except the queen. She sat up high on the tree, and her eyes had a frightened look, as though she did not like orphans. Once Santa Claus took her down, but Evelyn put her back again.

"Not that one, Frank," I heard her cry.

He turned and whispered something to her behind the tree. The branches were very thick, but for a moment I almost thought that his face grew different, younger and fairer, and with a gleam of triumphant laughter about it quite unlike the Santa Claus that he had been before. Then he changed again, and came out, with his long beard flowing and his fierce white eyebrows frowning, to give away more dolls.

At the very end of all he picked up the queen, and called gruffly, "Rhoda!"

I peered out of my corner at the orphans. I could not see any orphan Rhoda among them. Just suppose that Santa Claus should mean me! He did mean me! He beckoned with what he thought was a friendly look.

"Rhoda," Evelyn cried. "Why, you're not afraid, are you, dear?"

"No," I answered, hastily.

I do not think that she quite believed me, for she took me by the hand and led me up to where Santa Claus stood waiting with the queen in his arms. It was evident that he had forgotten everything, everything that I had ever told him.

"This is for you," he said in a genial way, holding out the doll.

The queen looked at me with delighted eyes, the dear queen! but I could not take her. I gave him the hat and the picture-book in a hurry.

"I don't want these," I said. "You know what I want. I told you up the chimney. And you promised to bring him to me. You know that you did!"

He seemed a little astonished for a moment, and then he laughed.

"Did I?" he questioned. "What chimney was that? You see I go up so many that sometimes I forget."

"What did you want, Rhoda?" Evelyn asked in surprise, putting her arms around me. "Tell Evelyn."

"I want grandmother's little boy to come home," I answered, almost crying. "The little boy who made the lilac ring. All day long she watches for him. I don't like to see poor grandmother cry!"

There were other things which I might have said, but Evelyn stopped me with a backward glance at the rows of orphans agog on their chairs, and a lady or two who had come with them watching in the background. Even Santa Claus was startled.

"A touch of tragedy," he said. "Who is this child?"

"Can't you guess?" Evelyn whispered. "What was I telling you just now!"

He looked down at me with sudden enlightenment.

"Rhoda!" he cried, uncertainly. "It's not our Rhoda? She was a baby."

"But babies grow in five years," Evelyn replied, in a laughing tone.

He stooped lower and drew me to him.

"Whatever I promised I will do," he said, emphatically. "If you wanted the whole world I would give it to you to-day!"

He threw off the long yellow cloak that was wrapped about him and did something to his face. In a moment he was just a man like other men, and had me upon his shoulder. Somehow it seemed to me that I had been on his shoulder before when the floor was farther away.

"Almost too big for the old perch," he said, with a laugh that was half merry and half tremulous.

"Oh, don't forget her doll!" Evelyn cried.

She came a little closer to him so that she could whisper.

"I honor you for this," she said, ardently.

Then she put the queen on his other arm, and gave me the hat and picture-book to carry. The orphans laughed a little, but Santa Claus did not mind. He strode out into the sunshine with his heavy load, and started up the block. The bells were ringing for service as we went along, and the street was filled with people, but I was the only little girl in the whole town whom Santa Claus took home. And at our parlor window grandmother was looking out.