A severe cold had settled on his lungs, and for weeks he had kept in doors, trying to subdue the tickling cough, which harassed him day and night. “Oh, if I only can be well by Christmas, I want to see Jesus’ birth night once more. Do you think he’ll let me go?” he would say to Miss Nellie, when she came, as she often did, to see him, and with tears in her eyes Nellie would smooth the light hair of the little boy who had grown so fast into her love, and answer that she hoped so, when all the time there was a great fear in her heart that never again would Bennie celebrate the Saviour’s birth night. But she would not tell him so then, for she felt sure that he was one of the little ones of whom our Savior said “of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” Her labor had not been in vain so far as Bennie was concerned. With astonishing avidity he had seized upon her words of instruction, and now, whether awake or asleep, the baby of Bethlehem was always present with him, the friend to whom he told his joys and griefs and to whom he often prayed for his drunken father, his idle, wicked sister Hetty, and his other sister, Maggie, whom he loved so well. Such a child could not fail to influence any household for good, and it was observed by many that Mr. Hewitt worked more steadily, and was not intoxicated so often as of old, while Hetty was less in the street and never brought her vile, noisy companions to disturb her sick brother. And Bennie was very happy except when he thought of the Christmas Festival and his desire to attend it. “Please, Jesus of Bethlehem, let me be well enough to go there just this once and hear my name called from the tree, will you, and I’ll be so good and not fret at Mag when my side aches and I cough so hard.” This was Bennie’s prayer, or the substance of it, said often to himself, but for once God did not seem to hear the little boy, for his cough daily grew worse, the pallor about his lips grew deeper, the red on his thin cheeks redder, and his great blue eyes had in them that bright, glassy look which only the eyes of consumptives wear. “I can’t go; he won’t let me,” he said, with a burst of tears, the morning before Christmas to Miss Nellie, who had come down to see him, and who tried to comfort him by saying that he would be remembered just the same, and that his presents would be new to him Christmas morning. “’Tain’t that,” he answered with quivering lip, “’Tain’t the presents. It’s going up myself and feeling that _he_ counts me in as one of ’em, I want to hear Him call my name,—Bennie Hewitt, and know how it sounds.”