The most beautiful story Mrs. Van Buren had found in her search during the year for a tale to tell her friends around the Good Will tree was one in the German tongue. She had translated it during the summer, and now called it by a title of her own as she told it.

Red Mantle, the House Spirit.

There was a German pedler who traveled from city to city by the name of Berthold. He grew in wealth, and at last carried portmanteaus of jewels of great value. He usually traveled only in the daytime, and so as to arrive early in the evening at the town inns between the Hartz Mountains and the Rhine.

But on one journey he was belated. He found himself in an unknown way in a great fir forest, where the dark pines shut out the lamps of the stars. He began to fear, for the forests were reputed to be infested with robbers, when suddenly a peculiar light appeared. It was a fire that fumed with a steady flame; he perceived it was a charcoal pit.

The colliers are honest people, he reasoned; and with a light step he approached the pit.

Near-by was a long house, two stories high, and the lower windows were bright with the candles and fire within.

He approached the house, and knocked upon the door.

The door was opened cautiously by a middle-aged woman, with a bent form and beautiful, but troubled face.

"What would thee have, stranger?"

"Food and lodging, madam."

"That can never be—not here, not here. It distresses me to say it, but it would not be for your comfort to tarry here."

"But I am belated, and have lost my way. I must come in."

"I will call my husband. Herman, come here!"

She stepped aside, when an elderly man appeared, holding a light shaded by his hand, and followed by a group of children.

"I am a belated traveler," said he to Herman, the collier, "and I have lost my way. I see that you are an honest man, and I may tell you that I have merchandise of value, and so it is not safe for me to go on. Give me a shelter and a meal, and I will pay for all."

"It is loath I am to turn away a stranger, but this is no place for a traveler. The house is haunted, yet it will not be so always, I hope; but it is so now."

"But, good man, I am not afraid."

"You do not know, stranger."

"But I can sleep where you can, and where this good woman can live with her innocent children."

"You don't know," said the woman, "You don't know."

"But I must rest here. There may be thieves without, wolves. There cannot be worse things within. I must come in, and I will."

Berthold forced his way into the house, and sat down near the fire, laying his portmanteau near him.

The family were silent, and looked distressed. But the woman set before him a meal.

"Let us sing," said the collier at last.

He turned to a table where were musical glasses, and began to play. How sweet and delicate, like an angel's strain, the music was! Then he began to sing with his family:

The merchant thought that he had never listened to anything so beautiful.

After the old German song, Herman said:

"Let us pray—will you kneel with us, traveler? You may have need of our prayers, for you have come in to us at your peril."

Much astonished at these words, the merchant knelt down beside his portmanteau. The collier began to pray, when there was a light sound at the storm-door, and a draft of wind stirred the ashes.

The merchant turned his face towards the door.

A strange sight met his gaze, such as he had never seen before. A little dwarf stood there with eyes like coal and with a red mantle. He moved the door to and fro. His eyes gleamed. He looked like a burning image. At last, swaying the door, he gave the merchant an evil glance that seemed to burn out his very soul, and was gone.

The prayer ended, and the family rose from their knees.

"I will now show you to your chamber," said the collier; "but before we go up, listen to me. If you do not think one evil thought or speak one evil word during the night, no harm will befall you. Promise me now that you will not think one evil thought or speak one evil word, whatever may befall you."

"I promise you, good people, that I will try not to think one evil thought or to speak one evil word, whatsoever may befall me."

"And you must not give way to anger; if you do, anger is fire, and he will grow!" said the collier.

The collier led the merchant up the stairs to his room and left him there, saying, "Remember."

The moon shone into the room. The Swiss cuckoo clock struck ten—eleven—twelve. The merchant could not sleep. He was haunted by the fiery eyes that he had seen at the storm-door.

Suddenly the door of his own chamber opened, and a red light filled the room. The same dwarf with the red mantle had entered the chamber and was approaching the bed.

The merchant had laid his portmanteau of jewels upon the foot of the bed, with the straps hanging over the bedside. He put his foot down under the clothes so as to touch the case.

The light grew brighter, and advanced nearer. Now the dwarf stood full in view, his eyes flashing, and his feet moving as cautiously, his head now and then turned aside, and his hands lifting the red mantle.

He came to the foot of the bed, and stood there for a time. The merchant grew impatient, and felt his anger rising.

The dwarf turned away his flaming eyes from him and began to handle the straps of the portmanteau of jewels.

The merchant's anger at the annoyance grew, and became uncontrollable.

"Avaunt!" cried he with terrible oath, leaping from the bed.

The dwarf stood before him and began to grow. He shot up at last into a flame, and stretched out his arms. He was a giant.

"Help! help!" cried the merchant.

There was a sound in the rooms below. The red giant reeled through the door and down the stairs and out into the night.

The collier came running up the stairs,

"What, what," he demanded, "have you been doing to our House Spirit?"

"To your House Spirit?"

"Yes, he has just gone out; he is a giant again!"

The good wife was following her husband, and wailing.

"Now we will have to live him down again; oh, woe, woe; this is an evil night; we will have to live him down again."

"Stranger," said the collier, "these things may seem strange to you, but when we came here our lives were haunted by the red giant that has gone out into the wood. We knew not what to do, but we sent for the old pastor, and he said: 'Good forester, you can live him down. Think only good thoughts, speak only good words, do only good deeds, and he will become smaller and smaller, less and less. Harbor no evil-minded person in your house. You may one day live him out of sight, and change him angel.' We had almost lived him down!"

"But what was he?" asked the merchant.

"He was our Visible Temptation."

In the morning the merchant hurried away.

Ten years passed. The merchant chanced to travel through the same forest again. Night was coming on, and he recalled the collier's house.

He went to it again. He knocked and an old man met him at the door.

"Thou art welcome," said the old man. "We are not forgetful to entertain strangers. What wouldst thou?"

"Supper and lodging," said the merchant.

"They shall be yours. We offer hospitality to all."

He was Herman, the collier. He did not recognize the merchant.

The old woman—for she was now gray—set before him an ample supper. The children had grown to be young men and women.

The cuckoo clock struck the hour of nine.

The collier altered the musical glasses.

"Will you join with us in singing?" asked he of the traveler.

The family sang as before the old German hymn:

"Let us pray now," said the collier.

They knelt; the merchant by his portmanteau as before.

He watched the storm-door. It did not open. But he became conscious of light overhead. He looked up. A star was forming there. Then a face of light on whose forehead gleamed the star.

Then wings of pure light were outstretched above the family.

"Amen," said the collier.

The light over him vanished.

The collier's family had lived down the demon, and changed him into an angel.

The Christmastide passed, but for days afterward the story of the forest family that lived down all the evil in them and turned it into an angel, haunted the mind of little Sky-High.

"I will tell that story, mistress," he said one day, "at the Feasts in my Country of the Crystal Sea."

"And to whom will you tell it, Sky-High?" asked Mrs. Van Buren.

"The Mandarin of the Crystal Sea is not deaf, mistress. Sky-High will tell it to him."