"It's as if something in me knew how to be glad more than I ever knew how alone. "For I'm nothing but me, here in Old Trail Town, and yet it's as if Something had come, secret, on purpose to make me know why to be glad. "It's something in the world bigger than I know about. "It's in me, and I guess it was in folks before me, and it will be in folks always. "It isn't just for Ebenezer Rule and the City. "It's for everybody, here in Old Trail Town as much as anywhere. "It's for folks that's hungry for it, and it's for folks that ain't. "It's always been in the world and it always will be in the world, and some day we'll know what to do." But this was hardly in her feeling, or even in her thought; it lay within her thanksgiving that the child was coming; and he only a little way down there across the marsh. ... It seemed quite credible and even fitting that the mighty, rushing, lighted Express, which seldom stopped at Old Trail Town, should that night come thundering across the marsh, and slow down at the drawbridge for her sake and the little boy's. Several coaches' length from where she stood she saw a lantern shine where they were lifting him down. She ran ankle deep through the thinly crusted snow. "_That's_ it!" said the conductor. "All the way from Idaho!" and swung his lantern from the step. "Merry Christmas!" he called back. The little thing clasping Mary's hand suddenly leaped up and down beside her. "Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" he shouted with all his might. Mary Chavah stood silent, and as the train drew away held out her hand, still in silence, for the boy to take. As the noise of the train lessened, he looked up. "Are you her?" he asked soberly. "Yes," she cried joyously, "I'm her!" * * * * *