“Very well,” said Adele merrily; “I want that market basket which hangs up there. Can you lend it to this boy for a little while?” The market man declared his entire willingness to do so, and kept Janey Hooper waiting for her bone while he filled that basket with everything which Adele’s eyes could discover, which might add to a Christmas dinner. There was a plump chicken, a roast of beef, a string of sausage, some potatoes, apples, onions, turnips, a great bunch of celery, and, in short, whatever the market man suggested, after the girl’s skill was exhausted. “Is that too heavy for you?” said Adele. “O, no, ma’am!” Bobby assured her. “Very well; I want you to take it to this little girl’s mother’s house, and tell her Santa Claus sent it to go with the soup, and that it has given him a happy Christmas to do so. Will you remember?” He nodded brightly, stuffing rosy-cheeked apples into his pocket the while, and they trudged away, Janey trying to murmur her bewildered protests, while Adele paid her bill. “I’ve spent every cent of my ten dollars,” she told Aunt Martha an hour later. “I hadn’t even enough to buy you any Christmas bonbons; but I have obeyed mamma’s directions; I was to buy something to make me happy, and I haven’t felt so happy in weeks as I do this minute. When I get my things put away I’ll come down and tell you all about it.” Aunt Martha watched her bound up the stairs, a glow on her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes which they had lacked when she went out; and whatever the purchase had been, she was grateful. As for Janey Hooper and her mother, to say nothing of Bobby, who took dinner with them, you must imagine how they felt. PANSY. [Illustration: MAKING THE SHEEP CLEAN.] MISS PARKER’S GIRLS. THERE were thirteen of them, all told. An “unlucky number,” one of them said, and laughed; they were girls who did not believe in “luck.” They laughed a great deal during these days, and were very happy. They had as lovely a secret on their minds as thirteen girls, all of them between the ages of eleven and thirteen, ever had. They were also very busy, and held many committee meetings, and discussed plans, and went in companies of twos and threes to transact business. “We were never so busy before at this time of year, were we?” they said to one another. “And we never had so much fun in our lives!” some one would be sure to say. To this sentiment they all agreed. “This time of year” was a few days before Christmas. The preparations for Christmas, so far as these girls are concerned, began two weeks before. It started on Sunday afternoon in the Bible class. Miss Parker had been even more interesting than usual that day. She succeeded in so filling their hearts with the lesson, especially with one thought in it, that Cora Henderson said, half enviously: