The Christmas Angel | Page 8

He was close upon the Angel. Would he see it, or would he
tread upon it in his disgusting blindness?
Yes--no! He saw the little pink image lying on the bricks, and with a
lurch forward bent to examine it. Miss Terry flattened her nose against
the pane eagerly. She expected to see him fall upon the Angel bodily.
But no; he righted himself with a whoop of drunken mirth.
"Angel!" she heard him croak with maudlin accent. "Pink Angel,
begorrah! What doin' 'ere, eh? Whoop! Go back to sky, Angel!" and
lifting a brutal foot he kicked the image into the street. Then with a
shriek of laughter he staggered away out of sight.
Miss Terry found herself trembling with indignation. The idea! He had
kicked the Christmas Angel,--the very Angel that Tom had hung on
their tree! It was sacrilege, or at least--Fiddlestick! Miss Terry's mind
was growing confused. She had a sudden impulse to rescue the toy
from being trampled into filthiness. The fire was better than that.
She hurried down the steps into the street, forgetting her shawl. She
sought in the snow and snatched the pink morsel to safety. Straight to
the fire she carried it, and once more held it to the flames. But again she
found it impossible to burn the thing. Once, twice, she tried. But each
time something seemed to clutch back her wrist. At last she shrugged
impatiently and laid the Angel on the mantelpiece beside the square old
marble clock, which marked the hour of half-past eight.
"Well, I won't burn it to-night," she reflected. "Somehow, I can't do it
just now. I don't see what has got into me! But to-morrow I will. Yes,
to-morrow I will."
She sat down in the armchair and fumbled in the old play box for the

remaining scraps. There were but a few meaningless bits of ribbon and
gauze, with the end of a Christmas candle, the survivor of some past
festival, burned on some tree in the past. All these but the last she
tossed into the fire, where they made a final protesting blaze. The
candle-end fell to the floor unnoticed.
"There! That is the last of the stuff," she exclaimed with grim
satisfaction, shaking the dust from her black silk skirt. "It is all gone
now, thank Heaven, and I can go to bed in peace. No, I forgot Norah. I
suppose I must sit up and wait for her. Bother the girl! She ought to be
in by now. What can she find to amuse her all this time? Christmas Eve!
Fiddlestick! But I have got rid of a lot of rubbish to-night, and that is
worth something."
She sank back in her chair and clasped her hands over her breast with a
sigh. She felt strangely weary. Her eyes sought the clock once more,
and doing so rested upon the Christmas Angel lying beside it. She
frowned and closed her eyes to shut out the sight with its haunting
memories and suggestions----
CHAPTER VII
BEFORE THE FIRE
Suddenly there was a volume of sound outside, and a great brightness
filled the room. Miss Terry opened her eyes. The fire was burning red;
but a yellow light, as from thousands of candles, shone in at the
window, and there was the sound of singing,--the sweetest singing that
Miss Terry had ever heard.
"An Angel of the Lord came down, And glory shone around."
The words seemed chanted by the voices of young angels. Miss Terry
passed her hands over her eyes and glanced at the clock. But what the
hour was she never noticed, for her gaze was filled with something else.
Beside the clock, in the spot where she had laid it a few minutes before,
was the Christmas Angel. But now, instead of lying helplessly on its
back, it was standing on rosy feet, with arms outstretched toward her.

Over its head fluttered gauzy wings. From under the yellow hair which
rippled over the shoulders two blue eyes beamed kindly upon her, and
the mouth widened into the sweetest smile.
"Peace on earth to men of good-will!" cried the Angel, and the tone of
his speech was music, yet quite natural and thrilling.
Miss Terry stared hard at the Angel and rubbed her eyes, saying to
herself, "Fiddlestick! I am dreaming!"
But she could not rub away the vision. When she opened her eyes the
Angel still stood tiptoe on the mantel-shelf, smiling at her and shaking
his golden head.
"Angelina!" said the Angel softly; and Miss Terry trembled to hear her
name thus spoken for the first time in years. "Angelina, you do not
want to believe your own eyes, do you? But I am real; more real than
the things you see every day. You must