“That is all,” said Mrs. Haloran at last. “No, here is a dear little suit, just right for Davie. And, John, read this note: ‘It was my little boy’s that is gone.’” Her overwrought nerves gave way then. “Oh, John,” she cried, her head on his breast, his arms around her, “we have Davie, anyway, if we haven’t the clothes for him. Poor, poor mother!” A moment later she was putting the garments back. “It is a disappointment,” she said, “but we certainly will not let it spoil our Christmas. We are no worse off, at any rate, than we were before. The things I have will insure the children’s good time. The candy alone would do that.... John, get me the candy! I’m going to fill the bags now--to take away the bad taste of this barrel.” The moment which John Haloran had been dreading was upon him. “Mary, I didn’t get the candy.” “Didn’t get it?” she echoed blankly. “No. I used the money to finish paying freight on this barrel.” “John Haloran! You _didn’t_!” “There was no other way. I hadn’t enough without.” “The children’s candy money!” she said slowly. “Money that I have been hoarding up, five cents at a time, for months!... Why, John, Davie has been praying for candy!” “What could I do, Mary? They wouldn’t let me have it at the freight office without the money. I barely had enough as it was. And I supposed, of course, there would be things in it for the children--never dreamed of anything else.” “For fifty cents,” she said as if to herself, not heeding him, “they could have got enough candy to satisfy these children--and they didn’t do it! And for one dollar they could have given them a Christmas that they would never have forgotten. They _could_! One dollar at the ten-cent store would have got them a book and a toy apiece, and two pounds of ten cent candy. And our children would have thought that was a glorious Christmas--poor little tads!” She had been speaking slowly and in a low voice. Now she said with sudden anger: “I know the kind of women that sent these things. They are the kind that go up and down fashionable city streets saying to every acquaintance they meet: ‘Do tell me what to get for my boy! He has everything in the world you can think of now!’... And I would be satisfied with one dollar for my four! Then after Christmas they groan: ‘What _shall_ I do with all these things?’... And I would be glad to pick up after mine all Christmas week if they only had something to throw around! There’s nothing right nor fair about it! Now!” This mood was so new to her that her husband was speechless before it. “Well! this barrel is going back to them--to-morrow. To think of their expecting us to pay freight on the wretched thing!” “Mary! You wouldn’t do that!”