oors. The
gift of silk and fawn-skin was finished. A perfect gift: fashioned and
accomplished with all the dexterity Pattie Batch could employ. "Just as
if," she had determined, "it was for my _own_ baby." And Pattie
Batch--after an agitated glance at the clock--quickly shoed and cloaked
and hooded her sweet and blooming little self; and she listened to the
lusty wind, and she put a most adorable little nose out-of-doors to
sense the frosty weather, and she fluttered about the warm room in
search of her mittens, and then she turned down the lamp, chucked a log
in the stove, put on the dampers like a prudent householder, and, having
made quite sure that the door was latched, scampered off to town in vast
and twittering delight with the nipping frost, with the roistering wind,
the fluffy snow, the stars, the whole of God's clean world, and with
herself, too, and with the blessed Night of the year.

She was exceedingly cautious; and she was not observed--not for the
smallest flash. The thing was accomplished in mystery. Before she was
aware of it--before her heart had eased its agitation--she was safely
out again; and there, in plain view, on the table, in Pale Peter's
living-room behind the saloon, lay the gift of silk and fawn-skin for
Pale Peter's bartender's baby--a Christmas mystery for them all to solve
as best they could.

Pattie Batch peeked in at the window.

"I wonder," she mused, "if they'll _ever_--if they'll _ever in the
world_--find out I done it!"

* * * * *

Presently Pale Peter's bartender came in. This was Charlie the Infidel.
Pattie Batch rose on her cold little toes the better to observe. The
frost exploded like pistol shots under her feet. She started. Really,
the little mite began to feel--and rather exquisitely--like a thief in
the night. There was another explosion of frost as she crept nearer her
peek-hole in the glowing window. Whew! How deliciously mysterious it
was! Nothing much, however, happened in Pale Peter's living-room to
continue the thrill. Charlie the Infidel, in haste, chanced to brush the
fawn-skin cloak off the table. He paused impatiently to pick it up, and
to fling it back in a heap: whereupon he pressed on to the bar. _That_
wasn't very thrilling, you may be sure; but Charlie the Infidel, after
all, was only a father, and Pattie Batch, her courage not at all
diminished, still waited in the frosty shadow, quite absorbed in
expectation. Entered,