Mr. Kris Kringle | Page 7

long embrace, loath to let them go.
"O Alice!" said Hugh, "Mr. Khwis is cwying. What's the matter, Mr.
Khwis?"
"Nothing," he said. "Once I had two little children, and you see you
look like them, and--and I have not seen them this long while."
Alice silently reflected on the amount of presents which Kris's children
must have, but Hugh said:
"We are bofe wewy sorry for you, Mr. Khwis."
"Thank you," he returned, "I shall remember that, and now be still a
little, I must write to your mother, and you must give her my letter after
she has my present."
"Yes," said Alice, "we will."
Then Kris lit a candle and took paper and pen from the table, and as
they sat quietly waiting, full of the marvel of this famous adventure, he

wrote busily, now and then pausing to smile on them, until he closed
and gave the letter to the boy.
"Be careful of these things," he said, "for now I must go."
"And will you nevah, nevah come back?"
"My God!" cried the man. "Never--perhaps never. Don't forget me,
Alice, Hugh." And this time he kissed them again and went by and
opened the door to the stairway.
"We thank you ever so much," said Hugh, and standing aside he waited
for Alice to pass, having in his child-like ways something of the grave
courtesy of the ancestors who looked down on him from the walls.
Alice courtesied and the small cavalier, still with the old rapier in hand,
bowed low. Kris stood at the door and listened to the patter of little feet
upon the stair; then he closed it with noiseless care. In a few minutes he
had put out the candles, resumed his cloak, and left the house. The
snow no longer fell. The waning night was clearer, and to eastward a
faint rosy gleam foretold the coming of the sun of Christmas. Kris
glanced up at the long-windowed house and turning went slowly down
the garden path.
Long before their usual hour of rising, the children burst into the
mother's room. "You monkeys," she cried, smiling; "Merry Christmas
to you! What is the matter?"
"Oh! he was here! he did come!" cried Alice.
"Khwis was here," said Hugh. "I did hear him in the night, and I told
Alice it was Khwis, and she said it was a wobber, and I said it wasn't a
wobber. And we went to see, and it was a man. It was Khwis. He did
say so."
"What! a man at night in the house! Are you crazy, children?"
"And Hugh took grandpapa's sword, and--"

"Gweat-gwanpapa's," said Hugh, with strict accuracy.
"You brave boy!" cried the woman, proudly. "And he stole nothing,
and, oh! what a silly tale."
"But it was Khwis, mamma. He did give us things. I do tell you it was
Khwis Kwingle."
"Oh! he gave us things for you, and for me, and for Hugh, and he gave
me this," cried Alice, who had kept her hand behind her, and now threw
the royal pearls on the bed amid a glory of Eastern scarves.
"Are we all bewitched?" cried the mother.
"Oh! and skates, and sugar-plums, and books, and a doll, and this for
you. Oh! Khwis didn't forget nobody, mamma."
The mother seized and hastily opened the blank envelope which the
boy gave her.
"What! what!" she cried, as she stared at the inclosure; "is this a jest?"
UNION TRUST CO., NEW YORK.
MADAME:--We have the honor to hold at your disposal the following
registered United States bonds, in all amounting to ----.
The sum was a great fortune. The Trust Company was known to her,
even its president's signature.
"What's the matter, mamma," cried Alice, amazed at the unusual look
the calm mother's face wore as she arose from the bed, while the great
pearls tumbled over and lay on the sunlit floor, and the fairy letter fell
unheeded. Her thoughts were away in the desert of her past life.
"And here, I forgot," said Hugh, "Mr. Khwis did write you a letter."
"Quick," she cried. "Give it to me." She opened it with fierce eagerness.
Then she said, "Go away, leave me alone. Yes, yes, I will talk to you by

and by. Go now." And she drove the astonished children from the room
and sat down with her letter.
"DEAR ALICE:--Shall I say wife? I promised to come no more until
you asked me to come. I can stand it no longer. I came only meaning to
see the dear home, and to send you and my dear children a
remembrance, but I--You know the rest. If in those dark days the
mother care and fear instinctively set aside what little love was left for
me I do not now