The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 | Page 5

it was really impossible to say. Margaret's nose was a cheery plaid--blue patches neatly veined with red. Jack looked from one to the other and forgot his own impatience in anxiety for their welfare.
"Girls, you look frozen! Cut away up to that house, and ask them to let you sit by the fire for half an hour. Much better than hanging about here. I'll come for you when we are ready."
The girls glanced doubtfully at the squat, white house, which in truth looked the reverse of hospitable; but the prospect of a fire being all-powerful at the moment, they turned obediently, and made their way up a worn gravel path, leading to the shabbiest of painted doors.
Margaret knocked; Peg rapped; then Margaret knocked again; but nobody came, and not a sound broke the stillness within. The girls shivered and told each other disconsolately there was no one to come. Who would live in such a dreary house, in such a dreary, solitary waste, if it were possible to live anywhere else? Then they strolled round the corner of the house, and caught the cheerful glow of firelight, which settled the question, once for all.
"Let's try the back door!" said Margaret, and the back door being found, they knocked again, but knocked in vain. Then Peg gave an impatient shake to the handle, and lo and behold! it turned in her hand, and swung slowly open on its hinges, showing a glimpse of a trim little kitchen, and beyond that a narrow passage leading to the front door.
"Is any one there? Is any one there?" chanted Margaret loudly. She took a hesitating step into the passage--took two; repeated the cry in an even higher key; but still no answer came, still the same uncanny silence brooded over all.
The girls stood still, and gazed in each other's eyes; in each face were reflected the same emotions--curiosity, interest, a tinge of fear.
What could it mean? Could there be some one within these silent walls who was ill, helpless, in need of aid?
"I think," declared Margaret firmly, "that it is our duty to look. . . ." In after days she always absolved herself from any charge of curiosity in this decision, and declared that her action was dictated solely by a feeling of duty; but her hearers had their doubts. Be that as it might, the decision fell in well with Peg's wishes, and the two girls walked slowly down the passage, repeating from time to time the cry "Is any one there?" the while their eyes busily scanned all they could see, and drew Sherlock Holmes conclusions therefrom.
[Sidenote: What the Girls found]
The house belonged to a couple who had a great many children and very little money. There was a cupboard beneath the stairs filled with shabby little boots; there was a hat-rack in the hall covered with shabby little caps. They were people of education and culture, for there were books in profusion, and the few pictures on the walls showed an artistic taste; they were tidy people also, for everything was in order, and a peep into the firelit room on the right showed the table set ready for the Christmas meal. It was like wandering through the enchanted empty palaces of the dear old fairy-tales, except that it was not a palace at all, and the banquet spread out on the darned white cloth was of so meagre a description, that at the sight the beholders flushed with a shamed surprise.
That Christmas table--should they ever forget it? If they lived to be a hundred years old should they ever again behold a feast so poor in material goods, so rich in beauty of thought? For it would appear that though money was wanting, there was no lack of love and poetry in this lonely home. The table was decked with great bunches of holly, and before every seat a little card bore the name of a member of the family, printed on a card, which had been further embellished by a flower or spray, painted by an artist whose taste was in advance of his skill--"Father," "Mother," "Amy," "Fred," "Norton," "Mary," "Teddums," "May." Eight names in all, but nine chairs, and the ninth no ordinary, cane-seated chair like the rest, but a beautiful, high-backed, carved-oak erection, ecclesiastical in design, which looked strangely out of place in the bare room.
There was no card before this ninth chair, but on the uncushioned seat lay a square piece of cardboard, bordered with a painted wreath of holly, inscribed on which were four short words.
Margaret and Peg read them with a sudden shortening of the breath and smarting of the eyes:
"For the Christ Child!"
"Ah-h!" Margaret's hand stretched out, seized Peg's, and held it fast. In the rush and bustle of the morning it