"We know you are our good angel to-day," said Mrs. Molyneux, bravely; "and that is enough to know." "But don't you know why I am here, or what sent me?" Mr. Molyneux said that he understood very well that his friend wanted to see justice done, and that he had preferred to see to this in person. "I thought you looked queer," said Mr. Kuypers, frankly; "but still, I did not know I was changed. Why, don't you remember Bruce? You remember Mrs. Chappell, surely." "Are you Bruce?" cried Mr. Molyneux; and he fairly left his chair and went round the table to the young man. "Why, I can see it now. But then--why, you were a boy, you know, and this black beard--" "But pray explain, pray explain," cried Tom. "The mysteries increase on us. Who is Mrs. Chappell, and, for that matter, who is Bruce, if his real name be not Kuypers?" And they all laughed heartily. People got back their self-possession a little, and Mr. Kuypers explained. "I am Bruce Kuypers," said he, "though your father does not seem to remember the Kuypers part." "No," said Mr. Molyneux, "I cannot remember the Kuypers part, but the Bruce part I remember very well." "My mother was Mrs. Kuypers before she married Mr. Chappell, and Mr. Chappell died when my brother Ben was six years old, and little Lizzy was a baby." "Lizzy was my godchild," said Mrs. Molyneux, who now remembered everything. "Certainly she was, Mrs. Molyneux, and last month Lizzy was married to as good a fellow as ever presided over the melting of ingots. We marry them earlier at the West than you do here." "Where Lizzie would have been," he said more gravely, addressing Tom again, "where my mother would have been, or where I should have been but for your father and mother here, it would be hard to tell. And all to-day I have taken it for granted that to him, as to me, this has been one part of that old Christmas! Surely you remember?" he turned to Mrs. Molyneux. Yes, Mrs. Molyneux did remember, but her eyes were all running over with tears and she did not say so. "Mr. Molyneux," said Bruce Kuypers, again addressing Tom, "seventeen years ago this blessed day, there was a Christmas morning in the poor old tenement above Massachusetts Avenue such as you never saw, and such as I hope you never may see. "There was fire in the stove because your father had sent the coal. There was oatmeal mush on the table because your father paid my mother's scot at your father's grocer. "But there was not much jollity in that house, and there were no Christmas presents, but what your mother had sent to Bruce and Ben and Flora, and even to the baby. Still we kept up such courage as we could. It was a terribly cold day, and there was a wet storm.