“I will not get him a dictionary,” said Violet. Yet she weakened after a tour through the shops. She could find nothing for her father-in-law that appealed in the least to an imagination all ready to be fired. Yet it was joy to be out for Christmas shopping in the crisp air to one who had been so little able lately to go abroad, while before her raptured vision she saw ever a wee sock hung by the nursery hearth, and a tiny lighted tree. Many little children were to be made happy this holy-tide because her child had come to her—Violet’s thank-offering had flowed by many streams to reach unseen baby hands. As she went along now she stopped to slip coins into the palms of longing boys and girls looking in at Christmas-decked windows. “Oh, _Violet_!” It was Mrs. Tom who clutched her. “Isn’t it dreadful—the rush! I’m nearly dragged to pieces. I’ve just bought an inkstand for father, in the shape of a peach, with a thermometer on it—the kind of thing no one ever uses, but I was desperate. I’ve a big woolly sheep for your baby, but if you think he’s too little for it——” “Oh, _no_!” cried Violet, her face rosy with pleasure. “How dear of you!” She could have embraced Mrs. Tom before crossing over to the toy store, a ravishing spot, one window of which was given up to regiments and regiments of lead soldiers afoot and on horseback, on a green plain dotted with little round white tents. The other window was filled with dolls sitting at tea-tables, swinging, or lying in pink or blue-and-white beds like the baby’s at home. When Violet was a little girl she had always been taken through this shop at Christmas time; it was one of the delights of the season, but never had it seemed so delightful as now, when she was buying toys for a “first” Christmas, while music-boxes played, and animals squeaked, and rattling, whirring mechanical toys ran riot. She stopped at last by a counter laden with glittering tree ornaments. Opposite were shelves filled with stationary engines varied with an occasional boat or locomotive. There seemed to be no clerk there, but a small boy, seven or eight years of age, with a white sailor cap pushed back to make a halo around his short golden curls, was walking backward and forward, regarding the display with rapt, angelic eyes, and incidentally putting out the tip of his chubby forefinger to touch a cylinder or an electric battery. Looking up suddenly he caught Violet’s eye; they both smiled, and she came over to him. So might her own little boy look some day. “Do you like engines?” “Yes,” said the boy with a deep, indrawn breath. He forestalled criticism: “I’m not too little to have one; my papa says so! He’ll run it for me. He’s down-stairs now.” He pointed to the shelf. “Do you see this one? That’s where you pour the alcohol in—and this is the steam gauge—and here’s the safety-valve. She’s a hummer! And this ’lectric—that’s a hummer, too!” “Oh,” said Violet. She sought for more definite accomplishment. “What do they do?”