m, but tell me all now."

Perhaps it was because the kind physician felt sorry for the sorrowing
daughter, or perhaps it was because, personally, he cherished a deep
affection for the scholarly old gentleman on whom he was expending his
most earnest efforts, but whatever the reason, he told her in the
gentlest, kindest manner, enough to make her understand that the chances
were against her father's recovery. His concluding remarks, however,
were reassuring. "Please do not understand for a moment, Miss Gordon,
that I have given up hope. I do not agree altogether with Dr. Helm, and
I feel that we have good ground for expecting favorable results from the
treatment that we have recently begun."

After hearing the news, Alice returned home, to find a letter in which
was a small check from one of the loving family circle, to be spent in
a Christmas present for the dear sick one.

It had come to be a sort of habit in the family for a few of the
far-away members to send little sums to Alice at Christmas time, in
order that the presents should be such as would give service as well
as pleasure.

The carrying out of these commissions had always been a source of
delight to both big and little Alice, for did _they_ not know best of
all the individual needs and hopes of each member of the household?
Who, then, could so well plan and shop for the merry Christmas, which
was _always_ a success in the Gordon household?

Yes, a merry, happy season it had always been for, while all the
comforts of a refined home had ever been theirs, the provision of
these comforts had required constant economy and management on the part
of the busy little "wifey" of the house. As the former children had
grown up and flitted away from the home nest to establish families for
themselves, they had gradually come to realize that it was because of
_not having_ so many things that they were enabled to get such a degree
of pleasure from those gifts which just fitted the need, or perhaps
those gifts, for which the ordinary craving might be counted an
extravagance.

It had always been the custom for each one of the family to hang up his
or her stocking, and when the grandchildren began to appear upon the
scene, grandfather's big sock always held a conspicuous place among the
stockings of all sizes.

It was the remembrance of all these established customs that had caused
the entire breakdown of Alice's walls of self-control (which she thought
had been so we