, the old stage coaches and the gabled
inns and the warm red wine, the snapdragon and the Christmas-tree, and
I'll believe again in Christmas, yes, in Father Christmas himself."

"Believe in him?" said Time quietly. "You may well do that. He happens
to be standing outside in the street at this moment."

"Outside?" I exclaimed. "Why don't he come in?"

"He's afraid to," said Father Time. "He's frightened and he daren't come
in unless you ask him. May I call him in?"

I signified assent, and Father Time went to the window for a moment and
beckoned into the darkened street. Then I heard footsteps, clumsy and
hesitant they seemed, upon the stairs. And in a moment a figure
stood framed in the doorway--the figure of Father Christmas. He stood
shuffling his feet, a timid, apologetic look upon his face.

How changed he was!

I had known in my mind's eye, from childhood up, the face and form of
Father Christmas as well as that of Old Time himself. Everybody knows,
or once knew him--a jolly little rounded man, with a great muffler wound
about him, a packet of toys upon his back and with such merry, twinkling
eyes and rosy cheeks as are only given by the touch of the driving snow
and the rude fun of the North Wind. Why, there was once a time, not
yet so long ago, when the very sound of his sleigh-bells sent the blood
running warm to the heart.

But now how changed.

All draggled with the mud and rain he stood, as if no house had
sheltered him these three years past. His old red jersey was tattered in
a dozen places, his muffler frayed and ravelled.

The bundle of toys that he dragged with him in a net seemed wet and worn
till the cardboard boxes gaped asunder. There were boxes among them, I
vow, that he must have been carrying these three past years.

But most of all I noted the change that had come over the face of Father
Christmas. The old brave look of cheery confidence was gone. The smile
that had beamed responsive to the laughing eyes of countless children
around unnumbered Christmas-trees was there no more. And in the place of
it there showed a look of timid apology, of apprehensiveness, as of one
who has asked in vain the warmth and shelter of a human home--such a
look as the harsh cruelty of this world has stamped upon the faces of
its outcasts.

So stood Father Christmas shuffling upon the threshold, fumbling his
poor tattered hat in his hand.

"Shall I come in?" he said, his eyes appealingly on Father Time.