asleep. You've brought
all the old pain back."

Sturdy young Susy Diller, herself a poor working girl, dragged up the
forlorn little object and scanned the thin, blue face.

"Where have you been?"

"Station-houses and such," the child answered sullenly. "After old Molly
died, they turned me out. I hadn't any capital, so I had to go out of
trade. I've tried to beg--"

[Illustration: "_She sat down on a doorstep and began to cry._"]

Susy stood considering. What would Granny say if she brought the poor
thing home? "Don't you ask another one to your Christmas party," she had
said already. "There won't be room for 'em to stand on one foot." Susy
drew her sleeve across her eyes. Somehow her heart had grown very tender
since she had been going to the mission school. A little scene flashed
into her mind: On Sabbath, Mr. Linley, the most splendid man in the
world, Susy insisted to Granny, had been explaining to the boys and
girls how even the Saviour of all the world had been houseless.

"I wish I'd been there!" said Susy bravely, "I'd a' took Him in."

"Susy," replied Mr. Linley, "when we do such a thing for the very
poorest and meanest, we do it for the Lord." And then he read the
beautiful commendation that the Saviour was to bestow at the last upon
those who did what they could in this world, picturing their blessed joy
and surprise as they said: "Lord, when saw we Thee hungry and fed Thee,
or sick and ministered unto Thee?" He had a way of making such vivid
pictures that the boys used to listen wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

So Susy had announced to Granny that she meant to give a Christmas
party, and repeated to her all the conversation at the Sabbath-school as
she always did.

"I thought you was going to get that nice new jacket? And you have just
money enough."

"I'll wait two or three weeks for that," declared Susy. "You see it's so
much nicer on Christmas. I don't understand a bit how the Saviour did
come down to earth, but it seems good to think He was a little boy,
though He was a good sight better'n any of us. When you think of all
that, you can get kinder nigh to him, just as I do to Mr. Linley, our
Sabbath-school teacher.

"And maybe, if we ask in the poor and lame, He will look down and think
Susy Diller is trying to keep Christmas the right way. There'll be lame
Tim Jenkins,--you know he was run over by the street cars,---and Humpy,
whose mother is dead, and the little Smith that I set up in the pap