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 he