ong the lowly. When the world grows
older, and men get wiser, possibly they will make the same choice."

"There have been solitary instances of the like along the ages--men of
whom the world was not worthy--but the most of us are not such stuff as
heroes are made of."

I turned to him with kindling eyes: "Wouldn't you like to be one of them,
Mr. Bovyer?"

He gave me a look that some way I did not care to meet, and turned my
eyes away quickly to a restless black-eyed little girl who was stretching
eager hands to a pink-cheeked dollie.

"You feel the sorrows of the poor and suffering more keenly than the most
of us, I fear, Miss Selwyn," he said--more to draw me into conversation
than anything else.

"My sympathies are of a very easy-going, aesthetic kind. Some of your
splendid music makes me cry. While I listen, I think of the hungry and
broken-hearted. I seem to hear their moans in the sob and swell of the
music. It was that which made Beethoven's Symphony so sad."

He did not say anything for a good while, and fell to watching the
longing in the children's faces, and my heart grew very pitiful towards
them. They were so near and yet so far from the objects of their desire.
So I resolved while the supper table was being cleared to begin the
distribution of my gifts, or rather, of Mr. Winthrop's.

I set Mr. Bovyer to work gathering the bags of confectionery, while I
carried them around to the excited children, taking bench by bench in
regular order, and filling the little outstretched hands, usually so
empty of any such dainties. The people came crowding around to watch,
while I began stripping the tree of its more enduring fruits. Mothers
with tears in their eyes, as they saw their little tots growing rapturous
over an unclothed dollie, or some other toy, beautiful to the
unaccustomed eyes of the poor little creatures. The tree was stripped at
last, and the children absorbed in the examination of their own or each
other's presents. Most of them seemed perfectly content, but a few of the
little boys looked enviously at the jack-knife in a companion's hand,
while casting dissatisfied glances at what had fallen to themselves.

It was time at last for the little folks to go home, and mothers soon
were busy hunting up children and their wraps.

The closing scene in the entertainment was the public announcement of
the evening's receipts; and we all looked with surprised faces at each
other when Mr. Bowen informed us