him and whom he loved.

"It is true what your little girl has told you." Van Landing took off
his glasses and wiped them. "I have no one to make Christmas for, and
if you don't mind I wish you would let me go with you to the shops
to-night. I don't know much about Christmas buying. My presents are
chiefly given in mon----I mean I don't know any little children."

"And I know forty billion!" Carmencita's arms were outstretched and
her hands came together with ecstatic emphasis. "If I didn't stop to
blink my eyes between now and Christmas morning I couldn't buy fast
enough to fill all the stockings of the legs I know if I had the money
to buy with. There's Mrs. McTarrens's four, and the six Blickers, and
the ashman's eight, and the Roysters, and little Sallie Simcoe, and
old Mr. Jenkinson, and Miss Becky who mends pants and hasn't any front
teeth, and Mr. Leimberg. I'd get him specs. He has to hold his book
like this"--and the palms of two little red hands were held close to
Carmencita's eyes. "Oh, Father, please let him go!"

Hesitating, the blind man's eyes were again upturned, and again Van
Landing spoke.

"You are right to be careful; but you need not fear. My name is Van
Landing, and my office--"

"You are a gentleman!" Two hands with their long slender fingers were
outstretched, and swiftly they stroked Van Landing's arms and body and
face. "Your voice, your hands, tell me your class, and your clothes
that you have money. Why--oh, why do you want to go with us?" Quickly
his right hand drew his child toward him, and in terror he pressed her
to his side. "She is my all, my light, my life! Away from her I am in
darkness you could not understand. No, you must not go with us. You
must go away and leave us!"

For a moment Van Landing hesitated, puzzled by the sudden fear in the
man's face, then over his own crept grayness, and the muscles in it
stiffened.

"My God!" he said, and his mouth grew dry. "Have men brought men to
this?"

For another half-moment there was silence which the child, looking
from one to the other, could not understand, and her hands, pressed
close to her breast, gripped tightly her cold fingers. Presently Van
Landing turned.

"Very well," he said. "I will go. It was just that I know little of a
real Christmas. Good night."

"Oh, don't go--don't go, Mr. Van! It's going to be Christmas two days
after to-morrow, Father, and the Christ-child wouldn't like it if you
let him go!" Carmencita h