regret--a blunder which cost him no little chagrin in the
outcome.

Peleg Hopkins grumbled audibly when he was requested to build the fires
on Christmas day, and expressed his opinion that "if there warn't Bible
agin workin' on Chris'mus, the' 'd ort ter be"; but when John opened the
door of the bank that morning he found the temperature in comfortable
contrast to the outside air. The weather had changed again, and a
blinding snowstorm, accompanied by a buffeting gale from the northwest,
made it almost impossible to see a path and to keep it. In the central
part of the town some tentative efforts had been made to open walks, but
these were apparent only as slight and tortuous depressions in the
depths of snow. In the outskirts, the unfortunate pedestrian had to wade
to the knees.

As John went behind the counter his eye was at once caught by a small
parcel lying on his desk, of white note paper, tied with a cotton
string, which he found to be addressed, "Mr. John Lenox, Esq., Present,"
and as he took it up it seemed heavy for its size.

Opening it, he found a tiny stocking, knit of white wool, to which was
pinned a piece of paper with the legend, "A Merry Christmas from Aunt
Polly." Out of the stocking fell a packet fastened with a rubber strap.
Inside were five ten-dollar gold pieces and a slip of paper on which was
written, "A Merry Christmas from Your Friend David Harum." For a moment
John's face burned, and there was a curious smarting of the eyelids as
he held the little stocking and its contents in his hand. Surely the
hand that had written "Your Friend" on that scrap of paper could not be
the hand of an oppressor of widows and orphans. "This," said John to
himself, "is what he meant when 'he supposed it wouldn't take me long to
find out what was in my stocking.'"

* * * * *

The door opened and a blast and whirl of wind and snow rushed in,
ushering the tall, bent form of the Widow Cullom. The drive of the wind
was so strong that John vaulted over the low cash counter to push the
door shut again. The poor woman was white with snow from the front of
her old worsted hood to the bottom of her ragged skirt.

"You are Mrs. Cullom?" said John. "Wait a moment till I brush off the
snow, and then come to the fire in the back room. Mr. Harum will be in
directly, I expect."

"Be I much late?" she asked. "I made 's much haste 's I could. It don't
appear to me 's if I ever see a blusteri