ometer had
gone up, and the barometer down. The air was full of a steady downpour,
half snow, half rain, about the most disheartening combination which the
worst climate in the world--that of central New York--can furnish. He
passed rather a busy day in the office in an atmosphere redolent of the
unsavory odors raised by the proximity of wet boots and garments to the
big cylinder stove outside the counter, a compound of stale smells from
kitchen and stable.

After the bank closed he dispatched Peleg Hopkins, the office boy, with
the note for Mrs. Cullom. He had abandoned his half-formed intention to
revolt, but had made the note not only as little peremptory as was
compatible with a clear intimation of its purport as he understood it,
but had yielded to a natural impulse in beginning it with an expression
of personal regret--a blunder which cost him no little chagrin in the
outcome.

Peleg Hopkins grumbled audibly when he was requested to build the
fires on Christmas day, and expressed his opinion that "if there warn't
Bible agin workin' on Chris'mus, the' 'd ort ter be"; but when John
opened the door of the bank that morning he found the temperature in
comfortable contrast to the outside air. The weather had changed again,
and a blinding snowstorm, accompanied by a buffeting gale from the
northwest, made it almost impossible to see a path and to keep it. In
the central part of the town some tentative efforts had been made to
open walks, but these were apparent only as slight and tortuous
depressions in the depths of snow. In the outskirts the unfortunate
pedestrian had to wade to the knees.

[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III]

As John went behind the counter his eye was at once caught by a small
parcel lying on his desk, of white note paper, tied with a cotton
string, which he found to be addressed, "Mr. John Lenox, Esq., Present,"
and as he took it up it seemed heavy for its size.

Opening it, he found a tiny stocking, knit of white wool, to which was
pinned a piece of paper with the legend, "A Merry Christmas from Aunt
Polly." Out of the stocking fell a packet fastened with a rubber strap.
Inside were five ten-dollar gold pieces and a slip of paper on which was
written, "A Merry Christmas from Your Friend David Harum." For a moment
John's face burned, and there was a curious smarting of the eyelids as
he held the little stocking and its contents in his hand. Surely the
hand that had written "Your Friend" on t