Miss Terry held it up and looked at it with the same expression on her
face, half tender, half contemptuous. "The Christmas Angel!" she murmured
involuntarily, as she had done before. And again there flashed through her
mind a vivid picture.

It was the day before Christmas, fifty years earlier. She and her brother
Tom were trimming the Christmas tree in this very library. She saw Tom, in
a white piqué suit with short socks that were always slipping down his fat
legs. She saw herself in a white dress and blue ribbons, pouting in a
corner. They had been quarreling about the Christmas tree, disputing as to
which of them should light the first candle when the time arrived. Then
their mother came to them smiling, a sweet-faced lady who seemed not to
notice the red faces and the tears. She put something into Tom's hand
saying, "This is the Christmas Angel of peace and good-will. Hang it on the
tree, children, so that it may shed a blessing on all who come here to give
and to receive."

How lovely and pink it looked in Tom's hand! Little Angelina had thought it
the most beautiful thing she had ever seen,--and holy, too, as if it had
some blessed charm. Fiddlestick! What queer fancies children have! Miss
Terry remembered how a strange thrill had crept through Angelina as she
gazed at it. Then she and Tom looked at each other and were ashamed of
their quarrel. Suddenly Tom held out the Angel to his sister. "You hang it
on the tree, Angelina," he said magnanimously. "I know you want to."

But she--little fool!--she too had a fit of generosity.

"No, you hang it, Tom. You're taller," she said.

"I'll hang it at the very top of the tree!" he replied, nothing loath.