A crystal star over the central entrance of the high school building, and within, gave evidence that the school, teachers and pupils, were making much of the season. It contained small electric bulbs of different colors, harmoniously selected, and gave beauty to the large square hall as well as a thrill to some of the pupils. The bulbs were glowing this last morning, and beneath their radiance, the boys and girls, visitors, parents and friends entered to see the play and the last assembly of the year; for before school met in session again a new year would be ushered in.

Betty had merely reported at her home room, for the dramatic director had urged every one to “hurry into costume,” as the play would begin at once. There was not a long wait. The older classes were admitted to the auditorium first. The rest and the junior high would see the second performance. No change of scenery hampered the stage directors, for the play was the effective “Why the Chimes Bang,” with the old but always beautiful motive of the stranger entertained who proved to be the Christ-child in disguise.

Carolyn had promised to tell Betty exactly “how everything went off” and sat with Kathryn and Mary Emma well toward the front and on the junior aisle nearest the middle of the auditorium. But Betty herself was peeping from the rear of the auditorium, or just outside one of the doors. The senior boy who took the part of the unselfish lad that gives up going to the cathedral, in order to welcome and care for the unexpected guest, Betty did not know very well, but she admired his playing of the part and was horrified when a laugh went over the audience at one moment.

“There! I knew they’d do that,” said a senior girl beside her. “It’s only because it’s so funny to have Jean almost faint in his arms. You see we know everybody! And those bowls they have the porridge in look too new!”

But the audience, who had, it must be said, been warned that they must be a part of the play, behaved most circumspectly when later the walls of the woodchopper’s hut parted to reveal a cathedral shrine or altar. From the rear of the auditorium, now supposed to be the cathedral, came the choir, chanting as the organ notes filled the room. Betty was one of the choir.

Up the aisle, up the steps made for the purpose, they went and stood in their places singing. One by one, unhurriedly, up the different aisles, past the quiet students and visitors, came rich man, rich woman, courtier, girl, sage and king, with gifts for the priest to offer. The medieval costumes were impressive. Then, from his place in the background, the lad, urged by the old woman, went forward with his small gift, all he had; and the fabled chimes that had rung for no other, rang for him, as the guest disappeared.

As the organ played the chimes and the lovely girl who was the angel spoke, Betty saw her mother’s handkerchief come out to clear misty eyes. There was the hush that meant the success of a message. In a few moments the curtains were drawn to again, and the audience was dismissed.

But as Betty went back to the rear again, to be in readiness for the choir’s entrance in the second and last performance, she noticed that her mother remained for that performance, too, though she had not expressed any such intention, and “lo and behold,” as her senior friend Lilian said to her, there entered her father, with Mr. Murchison and the countess. “Oh, Lucia, look!” cried Betty, leaning around a group of costumed players to speak to Lucia, who was in the group, as she added her youthful contralto to the choir.

Lucia smiled and nodded. “I knew they were coming,” she said.

Perhaps it was due to the inspiration or presence of Countess Coletti, but the second performance, according to Mrs. Lee, surpassed the first. Restless little junior high pupils appreciated the privilege of this assembly and were still at all the proper places. No wrongly timed giggles of laughter disturbed the play, which went through, without seeming hurried, in a shorter time. It was one of the things that one hated to have over, according to Betty, though she was glad that she did not have to pose as long as did the “angel.”

“What are you going to do tonight after the carols, Betty?” asked the countess, who had come back to see Lucia a moment after the play.

“Just go home,” replied Betty, simply. “It’s Christmas Eve, you know.”

“Indeed I do know, Betty,” returned the countess gravely. “It is going to be a little hard for Lucia tonight. It was last year. I thought I would ask your father and mother and the children over, if they did not think it would be too late. Will you have to trim your Christmas tree at the last minute, or something like that?”

“I don’t think so. We still hang up stockings, though chiefly for Amy Lou now! and this year we have just a little tree that she is to help trim after dinner tonight.”

The countess smiled. “I will ask your mother at least. Perhaps I ought not. What do you think, Betty?” The Countess Coletti, spoiled daughter and wife, but gifted and attractive woman, looked wistfully at Betty, whose heart was always warm enough to respond to some one’s need. In a moment she realized that for some reason the countess wanted them there.

“Why, of course, Countess Coletti—if Mother can manage it and you want us, she will come.”

“If the child should grow sleepy, she could rest as well with us and the car is warm—to take her home.”

The countess spoke reflectively, but now hurried away with a warm smile for Betty, not missed by several of the girls who were changing costumes for school dresses.

But there was no time for Betty to think of anything except the present. Joy of joys, the teachers did not have regular recitations. They played funny games and sang carols. Betty had missed some, but in Miss Heath’s class they sang Latin hymns and songs, the Adeste Fidelis, familiar to the Catholic girls in the Latin words, and even “Silent Night,” put into “not very good Latin” according to Miss Heath, but offered for their interest. The board was “covered with Latin poetry,” said Carolyn.

School was dismissed at twelve-thirty, Carolyn and Betty saying an affectionate good-bye, for Carolyn was going away for the vacation. “It’s a shame you aren’t going to your grandmother’s,” said Carolyn. “I may get out to the carols tonight, Betty, but it’s more than likely that I can’t. I think we’ll start tonight. Mother wasn’t sure. Have a good time and don’t forget your old Carolyn. Merry Christmas!”

The girls exchanged their greetings thus and Betty slipped a small package into Carolyn’s hand. “Now don’t open it till Christmas, Carolyn—tomorrow morning! Oh, is it really here?”

“It doesn’t seem possible does it? But if we go tonight, mayn’t I open it? It’s Christmas Eve.”

“Sure enough. And lots of people have their gifts on Christmas Eve. Of course you may. But I have your pretty Christmasy package all tucked away, ready to open Christmas morning. I’m sorry to be so late with mine; but you see I just finished it.”

Carolyn laughed. “How you ever had time to make anything, I don’t see, but I’ll appreciate it all the more.”

“It isn’t much, but I hope you’ll like it. Yes, we almost ought to be with Grandma tomorrow, but you see she is going away herself. She’s already gone. They’re packing her off to Florida for her own good, though some one is with her. Well, Merry Christmas, Carolyn, and I’ll never forget you. Couldn’t if I tried!”

Excited and hungry, the Lee children reached home for a late lunch together. Dick and Doris “gabbled” so fast Amy Lou couldn’t tell a thing, she said, and they had had such a beautiful Christmas morning at their school. Amy Lou almost felt hurt that her mother had gone to the high school instead, or that she could not have gone with her; but Mrs. Lee reminded her that she had visited her school when they had their “great Christmas program” and Amy Lou had “spoken a piece,” for that was what they called it in the old days when she was a little girl.

“We read things,” importantly said Amy Lou, “or have a ‘number.’” After that she took her dolls into the front room to play school and stood up for half an hour singing all about “good Saint Nick” with an “Oh, oh, oh, who wouldn’t go?” and the rest of it, varied with “Jingle Bells,” “Holy Night,” and songs new and old, learned at school and Sunday school, where music made an especial appeal to little Amy Lou.

“She is entertained for the next hour,” said Mrs. Lee, as she and Betty cleared the table after lunch. The little maid, who had been baking and cooking all morning, was excused for the afternoon and evening, but would come to help with the Christmas dinner.

“And we have an invitation for the evening, Betty. The countess said she had spoken to you.”

“Yes’m. Are we going?”

“Yes. I scarcely thought at first that I could manage about Amy Lou, since Lena ought to have her evening this time; but the countess wanted us to bring her and thinks that she ‘will enjoy it.’ I was quite surprised, but the countess said that she would appreciate our coming, that it was not like a regular invitation to a party, just a sudden wanting to have good friends there. Grandma Ferris is not so well, Betty.”

“Oh! Will you mind, Mother?”

“No. If I am needed anywhere, that is where I want to be. But be sure not to worry, Betty. Christmas Eve must be a beautiful time and if Grandmother Ferris should slip away, it will only be a homecoming.”

“Funny she wants you Mumsy, when she has so many older friends.” But Betty said this with an affectionate smile. It was not new that her mother should be wanted when people were in trouble. Well, Lucia wanted her; perhaps she could be like her mother some day! But oh, what a lovely time Christmas was. And wouldn’t Amy Lou love the doll they had for her! She was glad Amy Lou liked dolls. She still did herself, though she had stopped playing with them—oh, very long ago, it seemed.

The dinner was an oven dinner, already prepared for cooking and easy to watch while they did something else. The last packages were tied up in tissue paper of the newer gay sort, Mrs. Lee helping different ones as this one or that one must not see. Amy Lou was allowed to help Doris and Betty with packages for their father and mother. Dick as usual had disappeared, not to turn up till mealtime. But Mrs. Lee knew where he was, safely working on an aeroplane in the heated third floor attic of a boy friend. It would probably revolutionize aeronautics, Mr. Lee declared; but Dick good-humoredly took the teasing.

Then the little tree was brought in and it was decided to trim it then and there, instead or waiting till after dinner. Amy Lou was much excited when all the trimmings were brought out. But she sighed as she recognized some favorite decorations saved from the old days in the village. “And I used to think that Santa Claus brought them!” she said with some regret.

“Don’t you believe in Santa Claus now?” asked Doris.

“No. Do you?”

“Mother says Santa Claus is the ‘Spirit of Christmas,’” returned Doris.

“Yes. But it would have been so nice if he could have been just himself and really, you know, come down the chimneys.”

“Oh, well, we’ll keep on pretending, and hang up our stockings just the same.”

“Yes,” brightly Amy Lou answered. “It’s just as true as it ever was, I suppose.”

Mrs. Lee and Betty, who were listening, turned aside to hide their smiles at Amy Lou’s philosophy. “Poor little soul!” whispered Betty. “But she will be happy when she sees all we have for her!”

They need not have pitied Amy Lou at all, for her sturdy little soul had met her first disillusionment at school, at the hands of some other little girls, before whom she would not have shown any deep disappointment over finding Santa a myth. She thought it all over and accepted it; for she could recall a number of facts that seemed to bear out the truth!

And happy they all were that night. No tragedy met them at the Murchison home, whither all except Betty drove after dinner and a reasonable interval. Betty met Lucia and the other girls, who were taking part in the carols, at the big “Y” building.

Lovely, lovely Christmas Eve! So thought Betty as they started in the machines for the different points at which they were to sing “especially,” though the voices rang out all along the way in the beautiful Christmas music. It was still snowing by fits and starts, though not enough to cover the ground as yet. The lights of the city, the soft flakes of snow, and a bright sky above, helped make the Christmas atmosphere; for there were only drifting clouds as yet and behind them, beyond them, or through them shone the starlight.

They stopped at one place where there was a sanitarium in the poorer part of the city. Windows came up a little to make the words and music more clear to the listeners, not only where invalids were lying in their cots, but in the houses nearby. Betty saw a light flash out from a first floor window and glancing in she could see a delicate hand manipulating a lamp, adjusting its wick to the proper height. No gas or electricity there!

The light outlined clearly the head and face of the young woman who was bending over a table, then turning to speak to someone, for whom, perhaps, the light was made. Black hair was gathered into a low knot. Large black eyes looked toward the window. A gay scarf or small shawl of some sort lay on the table. Catching up this, the girl came to the window, threw it up, tossed the scarf around her head and shoulders, drawing it tightly around her face, and looked out.

The glare from a street light fell upon her face for a moment. Sober, almost tragic, the big eyes looked out upon the singers.

They had been singing several short carols but were giving the Christmas hymn beginning,

“Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown When thou camest to earth for me.”

And now, as the girl from the rickety lower window of a tall tenement looked out, Betty thought how appropriate, some way, was the stanza they were singing then, here where the people had so little. Lucia’s rich contralto joined Betty’s sweet voice, as they were close to each other, and made the words as distinct as possible for a group to make them:

Betty felt that she was singing to that girl in the window and Lucia, too, was seeing her. But she listened only to the close of that stanza then put down the window; and before the young singers had finished, the light in the room had been extinguished.

“Did you see that tr-ragic face, Betty?” asked Lucia, rolling her “r” in the Italian way, as they were speeding along toward the Y. W. C. A. again. It was late and the carols were over.

“Yes. The girl that looked out of the first floor window, you mean?”

“Yes. She was beautiful, too, wasn’t she?” And as Betty assented, Lucia added, “Oh, Betty, I’m learning things!”

Lucia did not explain, but Betty knew that the sorrows of others meant more to Lucia than they ever had meant before. There was “room” in her heart, too! And to Betty the sordid poverty of a city was new. They had always “helped the poor” at home, but there were not so many. The distress could be met. Here it seemed endless Yet on this lovely night it seemed that there was hope for every one in the greatest of Gifts, of whom they had been singing.

The girls grew gay with the Christmas joy as they chatted with their friends. At the “Y” Lucia telephoned. Then they took a car to a certain corner where the Murchison car would meet them. Everything went as arranged and Betty soon found herself in the midst of the prettiest Christmas decoration she had known. A lighted Christmas tree with the gayest of colors stood outside under the stars, where a little more snow was adding itself to the more artificial burdens of the tree. Within were gay holly and mistletoe and bright poinsettia plants in bloom.

Mr. Murchison led both girls under the mistletoe which hung from a sparkling, old-fashioned chandelier, and laughingly saluted their cheeks. “There!” he cried. “For lack of younger cavaliers, I shall do my duty!”

Amy Lou had succumbed to sleep, though not without a strong effort to keep awake. The countess took Betty by the arm and led her to look at her small sister, peacefully sleeping on a divan in what Betty called the back parlor. She was covered with a gay steamer rug and clasped tightly in her arms a large doll.

“Oh, you gave that to her, Countess Coletti!” exclaimed Betty, though in a subdued tone.

“Yes. I never can resist a pretty doll, so I bought one for Amy Lou. She seemed to like it.”

Smilingly Countess Coletti looked down upon the pretty, sleeping child. The countess herself was lovely tonight in a plainly cut black velvet evening dress. A diamond clasp was her only ornament in the way of jewels, but she wore a few crimson roses that became her well. Mrs. Lee did not wear an evening dress, but Betty thought that “Mamma” was very pretty in her “stylish” silk frock. Some other friends had called up, the countess said, and were coming over. In a short time the main drawing room was full of guests and presently a delicious light supper was served. It seemed the easiest thing in the world in this house for little tables to be arranged and everything lovely to appear as if by magic. But when Betty said as much to her mother afterward, her mother smiled. “It is good planning, Betty, but also competent help, trained to service,” she said.

Amy Lou woke up and behaved like an angel, according to Doris, who did not realize that Amy Lou was now a properly trained little school girl, not a baby any longer. Doris, very much impressed with her surroundings, had been quietly engaged with some books during the first part of the evening. Then the arrival of a friend of the countess, with a girl of about the same age and a boy a little older than Dick, had put the finishing touch to the visit. There had been music and games, while Lucia and Betty had been carolling.

Countess Coletti explained to Mrs. Lee, as Betty learned on the way home. “She told me, Betty, that she had felt the need of us as well as liking to entertain us on Christmas Eve, but that when she found her fears about Mrs. Ferris were unnecessary—she was so much better—she decided to make it a gayer occasion than it might have been. Friends called up and she took the opportunity to invite them in, adding a few others also. It was a very delightful evening for everybody, I think.”

“Don’t you believe, Mother,” said Doris, “that Mr. Murchison is interested in that pretty widow—I’ve forgotten her name?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised, Doris; but we must not say anything, you know.”

“Oh, not for worlds!” cried Doris. “With Father’s being in the business and our knowing them so well——.” Doris trailed off her sentence unfinished, but was probably taking satisfaction in thought induced by that last expression of hers. Betty wanted to laugh, but bless her “dear old Doris,” she would not.

“I have no doubt that the countess and Lucia are missing the count at this season,” said Mr. Lee. “I hope that that family will be together another Christmas.”

It had been a very unusual Christmas Eve for the Lee family, and it was followed by an unusual Christmas morning, for Amy Lou announced that she “might not get up” as early as usual on Christmas. She wanted “to see everything just as much,” but she was afraid she might sleep too late.

That suggestion was welcomed most heartily by the rest of the family. “I’ll put your stocking by your bed, dear,” said her mother, “and everything else; so if you do wake up, you can have them.”

Thus it happened that everything was different, but just as happy. The turkey had been prepared and went into the oven promptly as soon as Mrs. Lee wakened. Breakfast was very, very light, not to spoil the dinner which would be on time. Presents were “just what they wanted” and the little tree shone with its electric lights, gay decorations and little Christmas angel, which Amy Lou and the other children remembered from earliest years. Christmas cards and gifts from absent friends, including “Grandma,” made their hearts warm. And that they were all together, well, sheltered, blessed and happy, Mr. Lee gave thanks before he carved the turkey.