ed down the hall but saw nothing, for Jean had slammed
the door just in time. Half an hour later when they were going down to
breakfast Miss Allen came along the hall with outstretched hands to
meet them. She had been crying again, but I think her tears were happy
ones; and she was smiling now. A cluster of Jean's roses were pinned
on her breast.

"Oh, girls, girls," she said, with a little tremble in her voice, "I
can never thank you enough. It was so kind and sweet of you. You don't
know how much good you have done me."

Breakfast was an unusually cheerful affair at No. 16 that morning.
There was no skeleton at the feast and everybody was beaming. Miss
Allen laughed and talked like a girl herself.

"Oh, how surprised I was!" she said. "The roses were like a bit of
summer, and those cats of Nellie's were so funny and delightful. And
your letter too, Jean! I cried and laughed over it. I shall read it
every day for a year."

After breakfast everyone went to Christmas service. The girls went
uptown to the church they attended. The city was very beautiful in the
morning sunshine. There had been a white frost in the night and the
tree-lined avenues and public squares seemed like glimpses of
fairyland.

"How lovely the world is," said Jean.

"This is really the very happiest Christmas morning I have ever
known," declared Nellie. "I never felt so really Christmassy in my
inmost soul before."

"I suppose," said Beth thoughtfully, "that it is because we have
discovered for ourselves the old truth that it is more blessed to give
than to receive. I've always known it, in a way, but I never realized
it before."

"Blessing on Jean's Christmas inspiration," said Nellie. "But, girls,
let us try to make it an all-the-year-round inspiration, I say. We can
bring a little of our own sunshine into Miss Allen's life as long as
we live with her."

"Amen to that!" said Jean heartily. "Oh, listen, girls--the Christmas
chimes!"

And over all the beautiful city was wafted the grand old message of
peace on earth and good will to all the world.

A Christmas Mistake

"Tomorrow is Christmas," announced Teddy Grant exultantly, as he sat
on the floor struggling manfully with a refractory bootlace that was
knotted and tagless and stubbornly refused to go into the eyelets of
Teddy's patched boots. "Ain't I glad, though. Hurrah!"

His mother was washing the breakfast dishes in a dreary, listless sort
of way. She looked tired a