he will give to me in
clandestine way at Varsovie, otherwise it will be confiscated at
the frontier by the stupide Russians.

'Now we are dispersed in two sides of world far apart, for soon I
go home to Pologne and am no more "_juif errant_." It is now time I
work at my life in some useful way, and I do it.

'As I am your _grand fils_, it is proper that I make you my
compliment of happy Christmas and New Year, is it not? I wish for
you so many as they may fulfil long human life. May this year bring
you more and more good hearts to love you (the only real happiness
in the hard life), and may I be as now, yours for always,

'VARJO.'

A year ago he sent me his photograph and a few lines. I acknowledged the
receipt of it, but since then not a word has come, and I begin to fear
that my boy is dead. Others have appeared to take his place, but they
don't suit, and I keep his corner always ready for him if he lives. If
he is dead, I am glad to have known so sweet and brave a character, for
it does one good to see even as short-lived and obscure a hero as my
Polish boy, whose dead December rose embalms for me the memory of Varjo,
the last and dearest of my boys.

It is hardly necessary to add, for the satisfaction of inquisitive
little women, that Laddie was the original of Laurie, as far as a pale
pen-and-ink sketch could embody a living, loving boy.

_TESSA'S SURPRISES._

I.

Little Tessa sat alone by the fire, waiting for her father to come home
from work. The children were fast asleep, all four in the big bed behind
the curtain; the wind blew hard outside, and the snow beat on the
window-panes; the room was large, and the fire so small and feeble that
it didn't half warm the little bare toes peeping out of the old shoes on
the hearth.

Tessa's father was an Italian plaster-worker, very poor, but kind and
honest. The mother had died not long ago, and left twelve-year old
Tessa to take care of the little children. She tried to be very wise and
motherly, and worked for them like any little woman; but it was so hard
to keep the small bodies warm and fed, and the small souls good and
happy, that poor Tessa was often at her wits' end. She always waited for
her father, no matter how tired she was, so that he might find his
supper warm, a bit of fire, and a loving little face to welcome him.
Tessa thought over her troubles at these quiet times, and made her