rough the vista of green bowers formed of the grocer's stock of
Christmas trees a passing glimpse of flaring torches in the distant
square is caught. They touch with flame the gilt cross towering high
above the "White Garden," as the German residents call Tompkins
Square. On the sidewalk the holy-eve fair is in its busiest hour. In
the pine-board booths stand rows of staring toy dogs alternately with
plaster saints. Red apples and candy are hawked from carts. Pedlers
offer colored candles with shrill outcry. A huckster feeding his horse
by the curb scatters, unseen, a share for the sparrows. The cross
flashes white against the dark sky.

In one of the side streets near the East River has stood for thirty
years a little mission church, called Hope Chapel by its founders, in
the brave spirit in which they built it. It has had plenty of use for
the spirit since. Of the kind of problems that beset its pastor I
caught a glimpse the other day, when, as I entered his room, a
rough-looking man went out.

"One of my cares," said Mr. Devins, looking after him with contracted
brow. "He has spent two Christmas days of twenty-three out of jail. He
is a burglar, or was. His daughter has brought him round. She is a
seamstress. For three months, now, she has been keeping him and the
home, working nights. If I could only get him a job! He won't stay
honest long without it; but who wants a burglar for a watchman? And
how can I recommend him?"

A few doors from the chapel an alley sets into the block. We halted at
the mouth of it.

"Come in," said Mr. Devins, "and wish Blind Jennie a Merry Christmas."

We went in, in single file; there was not room for two. As we climbed
the creaking stairs of the rear tenement, a chorus of children's
shrill voices burst into song somewhere above.

"It is her class," said the pastor of Hope Chapel, as he stopped on
the landing. "They are all kinds. We never could hope to reach them;
Jennie can. They fetch her the papers given out in the Sunday-school,
and read to her what is printed under the pictures; and she tells them
the story of it. There is nothing Jennie doesn't know about the
Bible."

The door opened upon a low-ceiled room, where the evening shades lay
deep. The red glow from the kitchen stove discovered a jam of
children, young girls mostly, perched on the table, the chairs, in one
another's laps, or squatting on the floor; in the midst of them, a
little old woman with heavily veiled fac