ed the double purpose of a trunk and a seat. She put her child's
clothes and the scrap of white paper in this box. In the daytime she let
her child sit upon the window-sill so she could see the blue sky; but
when the weather grew colder she took her down to the kitchen each
morning, lest she should suffer.

Sometimes, Miss Amanda watched her closely. "She does her work well, but
she is a queer thing. She makes me uneasy," she thought.

Christmas was coming. Elsie and her mother had always loved Christmas,
and had invariably given some gift to each other. After their stockings
were hung side by side, Christmas Eve, her mother would take her in her
lap and tell her the Christmas story. So now it was a great mercy for
Elsie that she had her child to work for.

One day, when she had scrubbed the pantry floor unusually clean, Miss
Amanda gave her the privilege of the rag barrel. This resulted in a new
Christmas suit of silk and velvet for baby; and this she made.

When Elsie left "The Home" the matron had given her a little needle-book
containing a spool of thread and thimble for a good-by present. These
now came into good play. She used the lamp shears to cut with.

When all was done the babe looked beautiful, except that it had no
stockings. It had not even legs. "I'll make her a wooden leg, and let
her be a cripple, then I shall love her all the better."

But after she had made the leg, and a very good one, too, she hadn't the
heart to break the skin of her child, and push it in.

"I'll make the stockings without legs," she said, and so she did.

Elsie was very careful never to let her child see, or mention before
her, how busy she was for Christmas.

She felt very sorry for Miss Amanda, and wished she had something to
give her, but she could think of nothing except the piece of white paper
she found with her potato-child. The afternoon before Christmas she took
it from the candle-box, and smoothed it out upon the cover. It had some
writing upon one side. Elsie thought it was very pretty writing--it had
so many flourishes. Elsie could not read it, of course, but she hoped
Miss Amanda would like it.

How should she give it to her? She didn't dare hand it to her outright,
and she was certain Miss Amanda wouldn't hang any stocking; so just
before dark she slipped into Miss Amanda's sleeping-room, and laid it on
the brown cushion just in front of the mirror.

When Elsie had finished her work she went to her room, p