and sacks of magnificent
candies, and all sorts of good things; and before all these splendid
things the right shoe, that her nephew had given to the little waif,
stood by the side of the left shoe, that she herself had put there that
very night, and where she meant to put a birch-rod.

And as little Wolff, running down to learn the meaning of his aunt's
exclamation, stood in artless ecstasy before all these splendid
Christmas presents, suddenly there were loud cries of laughter
out-of-doors. The old woman and the little boy went out to know what it
all meant, and saw all the neighbors gathered around the public
fountain. What had happened? Oh, something very amusing and very
extraordinary. The children of all the rich people of the village, those
whose parents had wished to surprise them by the most beautiful gifts,
had found only rods in their shoes.

Then the orphan and the old woman, thinking of all the beautiful things
that were in their chimney, were full of amazement. But presently they
saw the cure coming with wonder in his face. Above the seat, placed
near the door of the church, at the same place where in the evening a
child, clad in a white robe, and with feet bare notwithstanding the
cold, had rested his sleeping head, the priest had just seen a circle of
gold incrusted with precious stones.

And they all crossed themselves devoutly, comprehending that the
beautiful sleeping child, near whom were the carpenter's tools, was
Jesus of Nazareth in person, become for an hour such as he was when he
worked in his parents' house, and they bowed themselves before that
miracle that the good God had seen fit to work, to reward the faith and
charity of a child.

[Illustration]

THE FOSTER SISTER.

[Illustration: THE FOSTER SISTER]

I.

Sitting in her office at the end of the shop, shut off from it by glass
windows, pretty Madame Bayard, in a black gown and with her hair in
sober braids, was writing steadily in an enormous ledger with leather
corners, while her husband, following his morning custom, stopped at the
door to scold his workmen, who had not finished unloading a dray from
the Northern Railway, which blocked the road, and carried to the
druggist of the Rue Vieille du Temple a dozen casks of glucose.

[Illustration]

"I have bad news to tell you," said Madame Bayard, sticking her pen in a
cup of leaden shot, when her husband had entered the glass cage. "Poor
Voisin is dead."

"The nurse