The evening had been so woefully disappointing-although it was nice, of course, for the others. It seemed that she, alone of all the world, was to be solitary on Christmas Eve. Even Penelope-if Penelope was to be taken from her she must see the home to which she went.

"If if I could go with you and see-" she faltered.

The man drew back with a haughty stare of astonishment. But the trouble in Dorothy's face was disarming. He surveyed her dubiously.

"Oh, Hi don't believe that could be arranged at hall, Miss," he scolded her. "I'm sorry, but-" Dorothy got pos

session of her suit-case and turned

away.

"Oh, Hi say, Miss, Hi'll do hanythink you say. Hi'll take you to 'er 'omethe little girl's. But you must come right away now. Hit's very late-Hi don't know what they'll think. This never 'appened before" He groaned as he led the way.

Surprisingly near the business hurlyburly, after the manner in which little islands and promontories of dignified family life in our great cities resist the devouring tide of labor, the man stopped before a rather grim stone building.

"I didn't know anything but private houses were on this block," Dorothy commented to herself. "One of the converted flat buildings, I suppose. It must be the janitor's child."

The man produced a latch-key and let them in. The hushed and tranquil splendor of the place immediately warned Dorothy that this was no flat building, but a gentleman's house-and the house of a gentleman of great wealth and exquisite taste.

For a moment this soothed her inexpressibly. Her nerves, worn a little raw by the events of the night, relaxed pleasantly under the spell of beauty so considered and so restrained. The soft pile of the Persian rugs was soothing to her tired feet, the pleasant warmth sent a returning glow through all her chilled body.

This was only a momentary respite, however. Almost instantly the peculiar conduct of the man who had brought her there alarmed her. He motioned her to seat herself in one of the tall old cathedral chairs near the door, opened a rear door and listened, pushed a portière cautiously aside and listened; stole, cat-like, up the deeply cushioned stairtreads to a landing and-judging by his immobility-listened there. Down he crept again his feet seemed velvetshod-opened a door behind a heavy portière on the left, and, with a warning gesture to Dorothy, vanished.

Alone in this strange place, all the folly of her impulsive act overwhelmed the girl in a flood of regret and fear. Why had she been so rash, so inconceivably rash? What did she know of this man whom she had accompanied into an

apparently empty house? He might be -anything. All of the tales of crime and violence of the disappearance of young girls-horrors untold-streamed through her mind. She ran to the door, tried it, shook it. She couldn't open it and she could see no latch. She searched frantically, her breath coming faster and faster. A slight noise behind her made her turn. The man stood there.

"Oh, did Hi leave the door hopen, Miss? There is a bad current there,' he murmured, deferentially. "Are you quite sure you are hentirely comfortable now, Miss?" Respectability enveloped him as a garment. What was he doing in this place knowing it intimately? Was he a burglar? But why should a burglar bring a witness to his burglary along? And what could he want with Penelope? The expression on his face was a queer one-hesitation mingled with relief.

"I-I think I'd better-" she had begun, her hand still on the knob, when, all at once, the hall was filled with people. They must have followed him through the door behind the portière. Five figures she counted, all women, and all with the same expression of indecision and relief. It was all so strange and dream-like that she could hardly believe it true.

"Mais-Monsieur Weelyam, what weel they say? I 'ave fear, vraiment I 'ave fear, moi!" the youngest and prettiest of the women was saying, with a strong French accent that was very pretty. The hands that she was clasping and unclasping nervously were smooth and slender.

"But if we don't-what will 'appen when they come 'ome? Hi ask you that, Mademoiselle? What will Master do then?" demanded the man who had brought Dorothy there.

Apparently this was unanswerable. Dorothy heard murmurs where the other women huddled together:

"Fer sure what will they do when they find out? - But 'twas niver my place, I'll say if 'twas my last hour. It was Mr. William or Maddym'selle should have attended to it. That don't make no difference, we'll all lose our places-" All this mingled so Dorothy couldn't indentify the various voices.

to them;" and, "Ye couldn't foind a foiner trussoo if ye hunted the stores over," said the red-faced one, heartily.

Dorothy still waited, wide-eyed, to catch some clue to the mystery. Mr. William cleared his throat.

"Hit's this way, Miss-if Hi tell you, you must promise you'll never breathe a word. Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright"he spoke the name augustly-"are not at ome. Directions were sent-although there seems to have been a misunderstanding-for Miss 'Elen's Christmas presents. Hi supposed, of course, that Mademoiselle-Miss 'Elen's gover

ness

would hattend to it-"

"Mais non, Monsieur Weelyam," Mademoiselle interrupted, shrilly. "It was assurément for you to make all the arrangements. Is it not the work of the butlaire?"

Mr. William turned very red. “Hi always 'old to such-like matters being attended to by women," he announced, with true British doggedness.

In an instant there was babel again, voices shriller and louder. Dorothy was becoming more and more indignant.

"You mean to say," she said, hotly, "that a child was left all alone by her parents at Christmas-time, and that every one of you in this great rich house forgot her? How cruel! How terribly cruel! I've been in the homes of dreadfully poor people this evening, and no matter how poor they were for that one day they tried to make the children happy. That's why I'm here, because I couldn't find any forgotten child. Oh, poor little lonely child! Poor child—”

Her voice trembled. Her eyes were big and bright with the quick tears. The contending group stirred uneasily.

"She has right," said Mademoiselle, contritely. "And it is I who am to blame." She made a dramatic gesture of contempt of herself.

"Hi 'ave been with them ever since little Miss 'Elen was born." Evidently Mr. William had suffered a change of heart. "Hit was worse for me."

"Oh, what's the difference?" Dorothy was a little impatient. "Where shall we put the things?"

Solemnly, at the head of the motley procession, the dignified butler led the way. Through heavy curtains they

journeyed, over dim, luxurious spaces, until they came to a little intimate room, book-lined, warm-curtained, smelling of fragrant leather and of the dying wood fire-beyond question a room where people really lived, shut safely away from the rest of the world by heavy doors as well as by draperies. Here he turned the light higher.

"This is where the Wainwright Christmas celebration has always been," he announced, his voice pompous now that he was again on the familiar ground of established things.

Dorothy looked around speculatively. 'Haven't you some greens-something that we can use for a Christmas tree?"

They were again a prey to consternation. While they were still huddled together, exchanging disheartened glances or looking accusingly at Mr. William and Mademoiselle, Dorothy's eyes lighted on an orange-tree growing in a big green pot by a window. She pounced on it.

"The very thing!" she cried, joyously. "Surely you have some Christmas-tree ornaments left from last year?"

This was the occasion for the stately housekeeper. "Indeed we have, Miss. It won't take a minute to get them. I always make a point of having everything where I could put my hand on it in the dark." She sailed out of the room.

Half an hour afterward the scene was very different. Mr. William had put fresh logs on the fire and prodded it and puffed at it with the bellows until it blazed royally. "Better keep it up the rest of the night so the room will be warm when the little dear comes in here," the housekeeper had suggested. A long white-silk stocking had been hung from the wonderfully carved Italianwalnut mantelpiece. In a big arm-chair sat Penelope, dangling her note and the key to her finery from a chubby hand, chubby pink knees straight before her, queening it in the seat of honor that was hers by right.

The top and the ball and the books and other toys were piled around her, and the trunk was at her feet. Moreover, the servants, scurrying to their rooms, had hunted among their Own things, and not one of them but had found something pretty or grotesque to

tuck in the stocking and give just the dear, delightful knobbiness that should greet every child on Christmas morning. The orange-tree, shapely and glossy green, was a mass of glint and color, with the array of tiny jewel-like colored electric-light bulbs all alight to test the connection. Nuts and raisins and apples and oranges had been found on the sideboard in the dining-room, of course, and Dorothy's boxes of candy filled in every vacant chink in the stocking and cornucopias and little gilt baskets on the tree as well. When all was ready the place was transformed. It was not only Christmasy it was Christmas.

And the place wasn't half as much changed as the people. Under that radiant spell of Dorothy's, their selfish fears for their positions, their selfish indifference of class to those who paid them wages-antagonism, perhaps had gone away before real love for a lonely little girl who, now that they had forgotten how great an heiress she was, crept every minute more tenderly into their thoughts. Their talk was full of her-how sweet she was, how gentle; how she hated to give trouble; how courteously she always spoke of them. They were not a bit like a household of servants tardily performing a neglected duty. They were much more like a group of fatuous uncles and aunts, with one stately and one red-faced grandmother. And it seemed as if no little mother could have glowed with a more tender passion than did Dorothy.

At last everything was finished. With a happy sigh Dorothy stretched out her arms and realized that she was tired. There was a pause for a moment while she adored the tree. Then she said, eagerly:

"Oh-could I Would it be possible -for me to see her just one minute before I go?"

"See Miss 'Elen?" Nothing could have exceeded the horror in Mr. William's voice. He had become again the conservative superior menial, oppressed with the weight of maintaining the dignity of his household. Awful suspicions assailed him. There were those kidnapping cases you never could tell to what engths those people might go. He hesitated.

But Mademoiselle's heart made her wiser. "You will come with me, Mademoiselle," she said, softly. "It is I that assume the-what you call heem?the responsibility." And Dorothy followed silently.

No room, it seemed, that had had the whole love of a real father and mother lavished on it could have been a more tender nest for a well-beloved. Somehow this thought of the neglect of these extravagantly rich people would not let Dorothy alone; the thought of it rankled in her. The light from the street made a faint, silvery radiance as it filtered through delicate hangings to a bed that was as exquisitely decked as if it had been a shrine. The radiance revealed plainly, and yet with the transforming touch of poetry, the child who lay there, cheek and hand cuddling the soft pillow, the tumbled dark hair pushed away from the placid forehead, dark lashes resting lightly against flushed, soft cheeks.

Something was clutched tight in the other little hand, clutched tight under her chin. With an irresistible impulse Dorothy bent forward and straightened the little fingers. Relaxed in sleep they let their treasure fall from them. Both girls bent forward eagerly. To see what it was that the child cherished had become the most important research in the world. It was a little battered image of some factory's idea of Santa Claus, such as flourishes during the holiday season in every humble home of the nationa little red-faced Santa, cuddling his hands inside his cotton-batting-bordered sleeves and hugging a tiny tree in his

arms.

Mademoiselle suddenly began to sob. "Oh, merci, merci! dear Mees. I cannot bear to think-what it would have been to-morrow if you had not come. Thank you that you save me from seeing that!" She raised Dorothy's hand to her lips.

Roused slightly by the sound of a voice, the child stirred, drowsily slipped a lax arm around the neck of Dorothy bending over her, murmured, "Mama," and drifted off into a sounder sleep.

"See how she herself have thank you; she think it is her mother."

Dorothy cringed a little at the facile. Gallic expression of emotion. The touch