But this was more than her wildest hopes. Joyfully, she went, shabby and cold, through the happy streets. She walked four blocks to a new market, and bought bread and butter and salt codfish and a candy cane. She went into a department store, leaving Teddy to watch the coach on the sidewalk, and got him the gun and the book. She gave her grocer four, her butcher three dollars, with a "Merry Christmas!" Did both men seem a little touched, a little pitying, or was it just the holiday air? The streets were crowded, the leaden sky low and menacing; they would have a white Christmas. Teddy hung up his stocking at dark. The big things, he explained, would have to go on the floor. "What big things, my heart?" Martie was toasting bread, eying the browned fish cakes with appetite. "Well, the coaster or the skates!" he elucidated off-hand. His mother's breast rose on a long sigh. She came to put one arm about him, as she knelt beside him on the floor. "Teddy, dear, didn't Mother tell you that old Santa Claus is poor this year? He has so many, many little boys to go to! Wouldn't my boy rather that they should all have something, than that some poor little fellows should have nothing at all?" She stopped, sick at heart, for the child's lip was trembling, and a hot tear fell on her hand. "But--but I've been good, Mother!" he stammered with a desperate effort at self-control. Well, if he could not be brave, she must be. She began to tell him about going to California, to Grandfather's house. Later she put the orange, the apple, the gun, with a triangle puzzle given away at the drug store, a paper cow from the dairy, and five cents' worth of pressed figs, into the little dangling stocking, placed the book beside it, and hung the candy cane over all. Mrs. Converse, the doctor's wife, had sent a big flannel duck, obviously second-hand, but none the less wonderful for that, for Margar; Teddy had not seen it, so it would be one more Christmas touch! And at eight o'clock, as she was putting her kitchen in order, a tired driver appeared, clumsily engineering something through the narrow hall; a great coaster, its brave red and gold showing through the flimsy, snow-wet wrappings. "Teddy from Dad," Martie, bewildered, read on the card. Not to the excited child himself would it bring the joy it gave his mother. Poor Wallace--always generous! He had gone straight from her plea for the boy's Christmas to spend his money for this. She hoped he would come home to-morrow; that they might spend the day together. Some of the shops would be open for a few hours; if he brought home money, she could manage a chicken, and one of the puddings from the French confectioner's-- Another ring at the bell? Martie wiped her hands, and went again to the door. A telegram-- She tore and crumpled the wet yellow paper. The wonderful words danced before her eyes: