She never thought of triumphing. She never dreamed of what it would be to electrify her former mistress with the announcement that she whom she had since served had died, and left her, Glory McWhirk, the life use of more than half her estate. That she dwelt now, as proprietress, where she had been a servant. Her humbleness and her faithfulness were so entire that she never thought of herself as occupying, in the eyes of others, such position. She was Miss Henderson's handmaiden, still; doing her behest, simply, as if she had but left her there in keeping, while she went a journey. So she bade good-by, and courtesied to Mrs. Grubbling and gathered up her little parcels, and went out. Fortunately, Mrs. Grubbling was half stunned, as it was. It is impossible to tell what might have resulted, had she then and there been made cognizant of more. Not to the shorn lamb, alone, always, are sharp winds beneficently tempered. There is a mercy, also, to the miserable wolf. Glory had one trouble, to-day, that hindered her pure, free and utter enjoyment of what she had to do. All day she had seen, here and there along the street, little forlorn and ragged ones, straying about aimlessly, as if by any chance, a scrap of Christmas cheer might even fall to them, if only they kept out in the midst of it. There was a distant wonder in their faces, as they met the buyers among the shops, and glanced at the fair, fresh burdens they carried; and around the confectioners' windows they would cluster, sometimes, two or three together, and _look_; as if one sense could take in what was denied so to another. She knew so well what the feeling of it was! To see the good times going on, and not be in 'em! She longed so to gather them all to herself, and take them home, and make a Christmas for them! She could only drop the pennies that came to her in change loose into her pocket, and give them, one by one, along the wayside. And she more than once offered a bright quarter (it was in the days when quarters yet were, reader!), when she might have counted out the sum in lesser bits, that so the pocket should be kept supplied the longer. * * * * * Down by the ---- Railway Station, the streets were dim, and dirty, and cheerless. Inside, the passengers gathered about the stove, where the red coals gleamed cheerful in the already gathering dusk of the winter afternoon. A New York train was going out; and all sorts of people--from the well-to-do, portly gentleman of business, with his good coat buttoned comfortably to his chin, his tickets bought, his wallet lined with bank notes for his journey, and secretly stowed beyond the reach (if there be such a thing) of pickpockets, and the _Mishaumok Journal_, Evening Edition, damp from the press, unfolded in his fingers, to the care-for-naught, dare-devil little newsboy who had sold it to him, and who now saunters off, varying his monotonous cry with: