This place was a mission-room in one of the crowded streets near the East End. Even though it was Christmas night, there were a few people who preferred the warm mission-room to their own homes, and these children were some of them. One was a ragged boy who had no home. The second was a little girl, who wandered in for the sake of the warm stove, for she was perished with cold. The third was the clergyman's son, who came because his father came, and because on this night, he could not bear him to come alone. The ragged boy, cold to the bones, with a body wasted by disease and want, crouched down in a corner, intending to go to sleep till a cup of coffee, which he knew would be given, should be offered him. The girl put her feet as near the stove as she could, but she knew nothing about the coffee, and only prepared herself to wait till she was warm, and then intended to slip out and go away. And the clergyman's son was longing to get home to his Christmas presents and the bright party he had left for his father's sake. But every one of them received a Gift which they little expected, and which altered their whole lives from that day forth. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in and sup with him, and he with Me." By the time the clergyman had impressed this verse and its meaning on the attention of his hearers, the poor little girl was warm, and shrinkingly giving a glance behind her, for fear she should be chidden, she slipped out into the cold, windy, winter air. Drawing her thin little shawl closer around her, she ran as fast as she could to the court in which was her home. She found her way up the dark stairs, and soon stood within her mother's attic. There was a glimmer of fire in the grate, but it was too small to shed any light in the room. "How long you've been!" exclaimed her mother's voice from a corner, sounding near the floor, for bedstead there was none. "No, I ain't," answered the little girl, remembering, as she said the words, that she must have stayed full half an hour by that warm stove. "I know it don't take you all this time to get that candle and a bit of bread; and there's yer brother been whining the whole time you've been gone." The voice was sharp with pain and suffering, and at the same moment little Bill began his whining again. The poor little girl lighted the farthing candle and cut her brother a piece of bread, then placed another by her mother's side, and lastly seized, rather than took, a piece herself, and sat down by the tiny fire to eat it. But as she ate the first food she had tasted that day, before her eyes came up a picture, living as it were, and she saw over again a Kingly Stranger knocking for admittance, and promising to enter and sup with those who opened to Him.