How It Happened

or half an hour longer Carmencita chatted gaily, offering dish after dish of imaginary food with the assurance that it would cause no sickness or discomfort, and at the child's spirit and imagination Van Landing marveled. The years of ignorance and indifference, in which he had not cared to know what Frances knew all men should know, came back disquietingly, and he wondered if for him it were too late.

As Carmencita got up to clear the table he took out his watch and looked at it, then put it quickly back lest she should see. Who was going to take the note? Why couldn't he go to the place at which was held the class of Little Big Sisters and get Frances? With a quick indrawing breath he handed his host cigars.

"I hope you smoke," he said; "that is, if Carmencita does not object."

"Oh, I don't object. Smoke!" Carmencita's hand was waved. "After I wash the dishes I'll write the note, then I'll go down and get Noodles to take it. I'll ask Mr. Robinsky to bring the harp up, Father. He brought it home for us; he's a flute-er." The explanation was made to Van Landing. "He always brings it home when Father and I are going somewhere else. Smoke, please. I love to smell smoke smell."

With a splash the remaining water in the tea-kettle was poured in the dish-pan, and for a few moments the clatter of knives and forks and spoons prevented talk. Over the blind man's face crept the content that comes from a good cigar, and in silence he and his guest smoked while Carmencita did her work. Not long was there silence, however, for very shortly the child was on a stool at Van Landing's feet, in her hands a pad of paper, and on her knee a backless magazine.

For half a minute she looked in Van Landing's face. "Isn't it nice and funny—your being here? I like you." Her voice was joyous. "If I tell you something, you won't tell?" She leaned forward, hands on his knees. "This afternoon before I went out I asked God please to let something nice happen. There hasn't anything very nice happened for so long, I was afraid He had forgot. What must I write, Mr. Van?"

Into Van Landing's face the color surged, then died away and left it strangely white. The child's eyes were holding his, and he did not try to avoid them. It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was to get Frances quickly.

"Tell her I must see her to-night, that I must come to her. Why can't I go to her, Carmencita?"

"Because she doesn't want anybody to come to see her that she doesn't tell to come. She told me so herself, and I wouldn't break her rules for a gold ring with a ruby in it. I know. I'll tell her I'm bound to show her something to-night or I won't sleep a wink. And you'll be It! You can go in Father's room, and when she comes in you will come out and say—What will you say, Mr. Van?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I sha'n't say anything. Sometimes one can't."

"I'll look in that book I read once and see what he said, if you want me to. It was a beautiful book. It had an awful lot of love in it. I know what I'm going to write."

For some moments she wrote laboriously on the pad, which wabbled badly on her knees, then she folded the piece of paper and, getting up, went toward the door. Van Landing followed her.

"The boy," he said. "Will you give him this and tell him if the note is delivered to Miss Barbour personally there will be more when he comes back?" He held out his hand.

As if not seeing aright, Carmencita looked closely at what was held toward her, then up in Van Landing's face. "You must have plenty of money, if you haven't any friends," she said, and in her voice was faint suspicion. "Noodles can't have that. He'd never go anywhere for me again if he got that much." Her hand waved his away. "When he comes back, if you'll give him a quarter he'll stand on his head. It's hard and hollow, and he makes right smart standing on it and wriggling his feet." She shook her head. "It would ruin him to give him a dollar. Please read to Father."

Her visitor's face flushed. Why couldn't he remember? "Very well," he said; "manage it your way. Tell him to hurry, will you?'"

Would she come? With his lips Stephen Van Landing was pronouncing the words of the article he had again begun to read to the blind harpist, but in his heart, which was beating thickly, other words were surging, and every now and then he wiped his forehead lest its dampness be seen by the child's keen eyes. Would she come? Three years had passed since senseless selfishness on his part had made her spirit flare and she had given him back his ring. For a moment he had held it, and in the dancing flames of the logs upon the hearth in the library of her beautiful old-fashioned home its stones had gleamed brilliantly, flashed protesting fire; then he had dropped it in the blaze and turned and left the room. Had she forgotten, or had she suffered, too?

With mechanical monotony the words continued to come from his lips, but his thoughts were afar off, and presently Carmencita took the magazine out of his hand.

"Excuse me," she said, "but Father is asleep, and you don't know a word you're saying. You might as well stop."

Putting the magazine on the table, Carmencita drew the stool on which she was sitting closer to Van Landing's chair, and, hands clasped around her knees, looked up into his eyes. In hers was puzzled questioning.

"I beg your pardon." His face flushed under the grave scrutiny bent upon him. "I was reading abominably, but I couldn't get my mind—"

"I know," Carmencita nodded understandingly. "I do that way sometimes when I'm saying one thing and thinking another, and Father always takes a little nap until I get out of the clouds. He says I spend a lot of my time in the clouds. I'm bound to soar sometimes. If I didn't make out I wasn't really and truly living here, on the top floor, with the Rheinhimers underneath, but just waiting for our house to be fixed up, I couldn't stand it all the time. I'd go—"

She hesitated, then again went on. "You see, it's this way. There 're a lot of things I hate, but I've got to stand them, and the only way I can do it is to get away from them in my mind sometimes. Father says it's the way we stand things that proves the kind of person we are; but Father is Father, and I am me, and letting out is a great relief. Did you ever feel as if you're bound to say things sometimes?"

"I'm afraid I've not only felt I had to say them, but I said them." Van Landing looked at his watch. "Your Father is doubtless right, but—"

"Noodles hasn't had time to get back yet, and she might not be there." Carmencita glanced toward the clock. "And Father is always right. He's had to sit so many hours alone and think and think and think, that he's had time to ask God about a good many things we don't take time to ask about. I pray a lot, but my kind of prayers isn't praying. They're mostly asking, and Father says prayer is receiving—is getting God in you, I mean. I don't understand, but he does, and he doesn't ask for things like I do, but for patience and courage and—and things like that. No matter what happens, he keeps on trusting. I don't. I'm not much of a truster. I want to do things my way, myself." She leaned forward. "If I tell you something will you promise not to tell anybody, not even Miss Frances when—when it's all right?"

"I promise."

Van Landing nodded at the eager little face upraised to his. It was singularly attractive and appealing, and the varying emotions that swept over it indicated a temperament that took little in life calmly, or as a commonplace happening, and a surge of protest at her surroundings swept over him.

"I promise," he repeated. "I won't tell."

"Cross your heart and shut your eyes and I will tell you."

Hands on his knees, Carmencita watched the awkward movements of Van Landing's fingers, then she laughed joyously, but when she spoke her voice was in a whisper.

"I'm writing a book."

"You are doing what?"

"Writing a book! It's perfectly grand. That is, some days it is, but most days it is a mess. It was a mess yesterday, and I burned up every single word I wrote last week. I'll show it to you if you want to see it."

Without waiting for an answer Carmencita sprang to her feet, and with noiseless movement skipped across the room, and from the middle drawer of the chest between the windows took out a large flat box.

"This is it." Again taking her seat on the stool at Van Landing's feet, she opened the box carefully. One by one she lifted out of it pieces of paper of varying size and color and held them toward her visitor, who, hands clasped between knees, was bending forward and watching with amazed interest the seemingly exhaustless contents of the box beside him.

"I use pad-paper when I have it." Several white sheets were laid in a pile by themselves. "But most of the chapters are on wrapping-paper. Mrs. Beckwith gives me all of hers, and so does Mrs. Rheinhimer when her children don't chew it up before she can save it. That's chapter fourteen. I don't like it much, it's so squshy, but I wrote it that way because I read in a newspaper once that slops sold better than anything else, and I'm writing this to sell, if I can."

"Have you named it?" Van Landing's voice was as serious as Carmencita's. "I've been told that a good title is a great help to a book. I hope yours will bring you a good deal of money, but—"

"So do I." Carmencita's hands came together fervently. "I'm bound to make some money, and this is the only way I can think of until I'm fourteen and can go to work. I'm just thirteen and two months, and I can't go yet. The law won't let me. I used to think it took a lot of sense to write a book, but the Damanarkist says it don't, and that anybody who is fool enough to waste time could write the truck people read nowadays. He don't read it, but I do, all I can get—I like it."

"I've never tried to write." Van Landing again glanced at the clock. Noodles was staying an interminably long time. "Like you, I imagined it took some measure of ability—"

"Oh, but it don't. I mean it doesn't take any to write things like that." Carmencita's finger pointed to several backless magazines and a couple of paper-bound books on the table behind her. "I read once that people like to read things that make them laugh and cry and—and forget about the rent money, and tell all about love-dovies and villains and beautiful maidens, and my book's got some of all those kinds of things in it. It hasn't got any—What did you say you thought it took to write a book?"

"Ability—that is, a little of it."

"I guess that depends on the kind of book it is. I put something of everything I could think of in mine, but I didn't put any ability in. I didn't have any to put, and, besides, I wanted it to sell. That's the chapter I love best." A large piece of brown paper was waved in the air. "It's the one in which the Princess Patricia gets ready to die because she hears her sweetheart making love to some one else, and then she comes to her senses and makes him marry the other girl so they can live miserable ever after, and the Princess goes about doing good like Miss Frances. But I'm going to marry her to somebody before I'm through—I'm—"

"You believe in marriage, then." Van Landing smiled, and, stooping, picked up several sheets of paper evidently torn from a blank-book. "This must be the courtship chapter. It seems rather sentimental."

"It is. Regular mush slush. It's the kind of courting a man who isn't much does—that is, I guess it's the kind, but the Princess understands. She's been fooled once. Tell me"—Carmencita leaned forward and, arms again crossed on Van Landing's knees, looked anxiously in his face—"what does a man say when he's really and truly courting? I mean a nice man. When the Real one comes, the Right one—what will he say? I'm just about there, and I don't know how to go on."

"I wish I could tell you." Van Landing leaned back in his chair and, taking out his watch again, looked at it. "I shouldn't dare to try to write a novel, consequently—"

"I'll try anything while I'm waiting to go to work." Carmencita sat back dejectedly. "Is a book a novel because it has love in it?"

"It is generally supposed to be. When you are older you may write your love scenes with greater knowledge and—"

"No, I won't. I don't expect to have any love scenes when I get married. I've read a lot of that, and it don't last. All I want my husband to say is, 'Will you marry me, Carmencita?' and I will say, 'Yes,' and I hope we'll keep on liking each other. Some don't." Her face changed, and she sat upright, her hands pressed to her breast. "This is a novel—to—night is! We're living one, and you're the Prince and Miss Frances is the Princess, and I found you! Oh, my goodness! what is that?"

With a swift movement she was on her feet and at the door. Van Landing, too, rose quickly. Below could be heard loud voices, the moving of furniture, and the cries of frightened children, and cautiously Carmencita turned the knob and went into the hall.

"Old Beer-Barrel is drunk again." Tiptoeing to the banister, she leaned over it. "When he gets like this he's crazy as a loon, and some day he'll kill somebody. Goodness gracious! he's coming up here!"

Before Van Landing could reach her she was inside and at the wash-stand. Taking up the pitcher filled with water, she again ran into the hall, and as the cursing, stumbling man began to mount the stairs she leaned over the banister and poured the contents of the pitcher on his head. As if shot, the man stood still, face upturned, hair drenched, hands trembling, then he sat down on the steps.

Giving the pitcher to Van Landing, she told him to fill it and pointed to a faucet in the hall. "I don't think he'll need another; one is generally enough. I've seen him like this before. His wife won't throw water in his face, but I throw." She leaned farther over the railing. "If you'll be quiet and go back quick I won't put any more water on you; it's awful cold, but if you don't—"

Slowly, and as if dazed, the man on the steps got up, and as he disappeared Carmencita nodded to her visitor to go back to her Father, now standing by the table. Closing the door, she came toward him and pushed him again in his chair, smoothing lightly the snow-white hair and kissing the trembling fingers, then at his feet she took her seat.

"I'm so sorry he waked you. It was just old Beer-Barrel. He oughtn't to drink"—she raised her eyes to Van Landing's—"but a man who's got a wife like his is bound to do something, and sometimes I wish I could put the water on her instead of him."

or a moment Van Landing walked up and down the room, hands in his pockets and heart pounding in a way of which he was ashamed. Ordinarily the sight of a drunken man would have awakened little emotion save disgust, but the realization of the helplessness of the two people before him filled him with inward rage, and for some time he could not trust himself to speak. A sickening horror of this hideous side of life filled him with strange protest. Yesterday he had not known and had not cared that such things could be, and now—

On Carmencita's face was none of the alarm that had come into his. Her father, too, was getting over his fright. For this helpless old man and fair, frail child, whose wit and courage were equal to situations of which she had the right of childhood to be ignorant, the scene just witnessed had the familiarity of frequent repetition, but for him it was horribly new, and if the Damanarkist of whom Carmencita so often spoke should come in he would be glad to shake his hand.

A noise at the door made him start. They were coming. The boy and Frances. He dug his hands deeper in his pockets to hide their trembling, and his face went white.

But it was not Noodles. It was Mr. Robinsky, who had brought the harp, and, though he evidently intended to sit down and talk, with consummate skill and grace he was led into the hall by Carmencita and told good night with sweetness and decision. It was wonderfully managed. No man could have done it, and in his heart Van Landing thanked her; but before he could speak there was a loud pounding on the door, and both he and Carmencita started nervously toward it.

"It's Noodles. I know his knock." Carmencita's hands clasped tightly, and in her voice was eager trembling. "I'm so excited I can't breathe good! It's like being in a book. Go in the room over there quick, Mr. Van. Come in!"

With inward as well as outward rigidity Van Landing waited. To the movements of Carmencita's hand waving him away he paid no attention. In thick, heavy throbs his heart sent the blood to his face, then it receded, and for a moment the room was dark and he saw nothing. To the "come in" of Carmencita the door opened, and he looked in its direction. Noodles was alone.

"Where is she?" Carmencita's voice was high and shrill in excitement and dismay. "I told you to wait for her! You know I told you to wait for her!"

Cap in hand, Noodles looked first at Van Landing and then at the child. "Warn't no her to wait for," he said, presently. "She ain't there, and she didn't go to the class to-night. Miss James went for her. Some of her kin-folks is in town staying with some their kin-folks, and she is spending the night with 'em." The now soiled and crumpled note was held toward Carmencita. "She won't be back till day after to-morrow, what's Christmas eve, though she might come back to-morrow night, Fetch-It said. Warn't nobody there but Fetch-It—leastways warn't nobody else I seen."

Van Landing looked at Carmencita, then turned sharply and went over toward the window. A choking, stifling sensation made breathing difficult, and, the tension of the past few hours relaxed, he felt as one on the edge of a precipice from which at any moment he might topple over. It was too cold to open the window, but he must have air. Going to the couch, he took up his hat and coat, then came back and held out his hand.

"Give him this"—he nodded at Noodles, "and tell your father good night. And thank you, Carmencita, thank you for letting me come. To-morrow—" The room was getting black. "I will see you to-morrow."

A moment later he was out of the room and down the steps and on the street, and in the darkness he walked as one who feels something in his way he cannot see; and then he laughed, and the laugh was hard and bitter, and in it was a sound that was not good to hear.

The cold air stung his face, made breathing better, and after a while he looked up. For many blocks he had walked unheedingly, but, hearing a church-bell strike the hour, he took out his watch and glanced at it. To go home was impossible. Turning into a side-street, he walked rapidly in a direction that led he knew not whither, and for a while let the stinging sensation of disappointment and rebellion possess him without restraint. It was pretty cruel, this sudden shutting of the door of hope in his face. The discovery of Frances's presence in the city had brought again in full tumultuous surge the old love and longing, and the hours of waiting had been well-nigh unendurable. And now he would have to wait until day after to-morrow. He would go to-morrow night to this Mother Somebody. What was her name? He could remember nothing, was, indeed, as stupid as if he had been knocked in the head. Well, he had been. Where did this woman live? The child had refused to tell him. With a sudden stop he looked around. Where was he? He had walked miles in and out of streets as unknown to him as if part of a city he had never been in, and he had no idea where he was. A sudden fear gripped him. Where did Carmencita live? He had paid no attention to the streets they were on when she took him to the house she called home. He was full of other thought, but her address, of course, he would get before he left, and he had left without asking. What a fool he was! What a stupid fool! For half a moment he looked uncertainly up and down the street whose name he did not know. No policeman was in sight; no one was in sight except a woman on the opposite pavement, who was scurrying along with something under her shawl hugged close to her breast, and a young girl who was coming his way. Turning, he retraced his steps. He did not know in which direction to go. He only knew he must keep on. Perhaps he could find his way back to the place where Carmencita lived.

He did not find it. Through the night he walked street after street, trying to recall some building he had passed, but he had walked as blind men walk, and nothing had been noticed. To ask of people what they could not tell was useless. He did not know the name of the street he wanted to find, and, moreover, a curious shrinking kept him from inquiring. In the morning he would find it, but he did not want to make demands upon the usual sources for help until he had exhausted all other means of redeeming his folly in not learning Carmencita's full name and address before he left her. Was a man's whole life to be changed, to be made or unmade, by whimsical chance or by stupid blunder? In the gray dawn of a new day he reached his home and went to bed for a few hours' sleep.

When, later, he left his house to renew his search for Carmencita the weather had changed. It had begun to snow, and tiny particles of ice stung his face as he walked, and the people who passed shivered as they hurried by. On every street that offered chance of being the one he sought he went up and down its length, and not until he felt he was being noticed did he take into partial confidence a good-natured policeman who had nodded to him on his third passing. The man was kindly, but for hay-stack needles there was no time and he was directed to headquarters. To find a house, number unknown, on a street, name unknown, of a party, full name again unknown, was too much of a puzzle for busy times like these. Any other time than Christmas—He was turned from that an inquiry from a woman with a child in her arms might be answered.

"Any other time than Christmas!"

With a sense of demoralization it was dawning on him that he might not find her, or Carmencita, in time for Christmas, and he must find them. A great hunger for the day to be to him what it seemed to be to others possessed him feverishly, and with eyes that saw what they had never seen before he watched, as he walked, the faces of the people who passed, and in his heart crept childish longing to buy something for somebody, something that was wanted very much, as these people seemed to be doing. He had made out the checks he usually sent to certain institutions and certain parties at this season of the year for his head clerk to mail. By this time they had been received, but with them had gone no word of greeting or good will; his card alone had been inclosed. A few orders had been left at various stores, but with them went no Christmas spirit. He wondered how it would feel to buy a thing that could make one's face look as Carmencita's had looked when she made her purchase of the night before. It was a locket she had bought—a gold locket.

In a whispered confidence while in the car she had told him it was for her mother's picture. The picture used to be in her father's watch, but the watch had to be sold when he was sick, after her mother's death, and he had missed the touch of the picture so. She knew, for often she had seen him holding his watch in his hand, open at the back, where the picture lay, with his fingers on it, and sometimes he would kiss it when he thought she was out of the room. After the watch was sold the picture had been folded up in one of her mother's handkerchiefs, and her father kept it in the pocket of his coat; but once it had slipped out of the handkerchief, and once through a hole in the pocket, and they thought it was lost. Her father hadn't slept any that night. And now he could sleep with the locket around his neck. She would put it on a ribbon. Wasn't it grand? And Carmencita's hands had clasped ecstatically.

Up and down the streets he went, looking, looking, looking. The district in which he found himself was one of the poorest in the city, but the shops were crowded with buyers, and, though the goods for sale were cheap and common and of a quality that at other times would have repelled, to-day they interested. Carmencita might be among the shoppers. She had said she had a few things to get for some children—penny things—and she was possibly out, notwithstanding the snow which now was falling thick and fast.

Some time after his usual lunch-hour he remembered he must have something to eat; and, going into a dingy-looking restaurant, he sat down at a table, the only one which had a vacant seat at it, and ordered coffee and oysters. His table companion was a half-grown boy with chapped hands and a thin white face; but his eyes were clear and happy, and the piece of pie he was eating was being swallowed in huge hunks. It was his sole order, a piece of awful-looking pie. As the coffee and oysters were brought him Van Landing saw the boy look at them hungrily and then turn his eyes away.

"I beg your pardon." Van Landing, whose well-regulated life permitted of few impulses, turned to the boy. "I ordered these things"—he pointed to the steaming food—"and I don't want them. I want something else. Would you mind having them? It's a pity to throw them away."

The boy hesitated, uncertain what was meant, then he laughed. "It sure is," he said. "If you don't want them I'll help you out. I'm hollow as a hound what's been on a hunt. Good thing Christmas don't come but once a year. You can cut out lunch better'n anything else for a save-up, though. That girl over there"—he pointed his finger behind him—"ain't had nothing but a glass of milk for a month. She's got some kiddie brothers and sisters, and they're bound to have Christmas, she says. Rough day, ain't it?"

Van Landing gave another order. Had it not been for the gnawing restlessness, the growing fear, which filled him, the scene would have interested. A few days ago he would have seen only the sordid side of it, the crudeness and coarseness; but the search he was on had humanized what hitherto had only seemed a disagreeable and objectionable side of life, and the people before him were of an odd kinship. In their faces was hunger. There were so many kinds of hunger in the world. He got up, and with a nod to the boy paid his bill and went out.

Through the afternoon hours he walked steadily. Dogged determination made him keep on, just as sensitive shrinking prevented his making inquiries of others. It was silly to ask what couldn't be answered. He must have been mad the night before not to have noticed where he was going, not to have asked Carmencita her name.

By four o'clock the street-lights had been turned on, making of the dark, dingy tenements a long lane with high, unbroken walls, and on a corner he stood for a moment wondering which was the best way to go. To his left were shops; he went toward them, and each face of the children coming in or going out was scanned intently. Seeing a group pressed close to a window in which was displayed an assortment of dolls of all sorts and sizes, with peculiar clothing of peculiar colors, he went toward them, stood for a moment by their side. One of the children was the size of Carmencita.

"That's mine—that one in the pink-silk dress"—a dirty little finger was pointed to a huge and highly decorated doll in the center of the window—"that and the blue beads, and that box of paints with the picture on it, and—"

"You're a pig, all right. Want the earth, don't you? Well, you can't have it." And valiantly a child with a shawl on her head pushed closer to the window, now clouded by the steam from many little mouths. "I want that one—the one in long clothes with a cap on. What you want, Lizzie Lue? Look out there and keep your elbows where they belong"—this to the jostling, pushing crowd behind. "Come on, kid; kick if you have to; only way you can manage some folks. Which one you want, Lizzie Lue?" And a tiny scrap of a child was held up in arms but little bigger than her own.

As Van Landing listened a sudden impulse to take the children in and get for them the things they wanted came over him; then he walked away. If only he could find Carmencita and let her do the buying. Was Christmas like this every year? These children with no chance—was there no one to give them their share of childhood's rights? Settlement workers, churches, schools, charity associations—things of that sort doubtless saw to them. It was not his business. But wasn't it his business? Could it possibly be his business to know—and care?

"I beg your pardon, sir."

Van Landing looked up. A tall, slender man in working-clothes, a basket on one arm, his wife holding to the other, tried to touch his hat. "The crowd makes walking hard without pushing. I hope I didn't step on your foot."

"Didn't touch it." The man had on no overcoat, and his hands were red and chapped. He was much too thin for his height, and as he coughed Van Landing understood. "Shopping, I suppose?"

Why he asked he did not know, and it was the wife he asked, the young wife whose timid clutch of her husband's arm was very unlike the manner of most of the women he had passed. She looked up.

"We were afraid to wait until to-morrow, it's snowing so hard. We might not be able to get out, and the children—"

"We've got three kiddies home." The man's thin face brightened, and he rubbed his coat sleeve across his mouth to check his cough. "Santa Claus is sure enough to them, and we don't want 'em to know different till we have to. A merry Christmas, sir!"

As they went on Van Landing turned and looked. They were poor people. But were they quite so poor as he? He had seen many for whom he might have made Christmas had he known in time—might have saved the sacrifices that had to be made; but would it then have been Christmas? Slowly, very slowly, in the shabby street and snow-filled air, an understanding of things but dimly glimpsed before was coming to him, and he was seeing what for long had been unseen.

hink hard, Father—oh, please think hard! It was Van—Van—" Carmencita, hands clutched tightly behind her back, leaned forward on her tiptoes and anxiously peered into her father's face for sign of dawning memory. "If I hadn't been so Christmas-crazy I'd have listened better, but I wasn't thinking about his name. Can't you—can't you remember the last part? It was Van—Van—"

Slowly her father shook his head. "I wish I could, Carmencita. I don't hear well of late and I didn't catch his name. You called him Mr. Van."

"I called him that for short. I'm a cutting-down person even in names." The palms of Carmencita's hands came together and her fingers interlocked. "If I'd had more sense and manners I'd have called his name right from the first, and we wouldn't have lost him. I could have found him to-day if I'd known what to look for in the telephone-book, or if Miss Frances had been at Mother McNeil's. She might as well be lost, too, but she'll be back at seven, and that's why I am going now, so as to be there the minute she gets in, to ask her what his—"

"She might not like your asking, Carmencita. You must be careful, child. Miss Barbour is not a lady one can—"

"Not a lady one can what?" Carmencita stopped her nervous swaying, and the big blue eyes looked questioningly at her father. "Was there ever a lady who didn't want to find her lost lover if he was looking for her? That's what he is. And she wants to find him, if she don't know it exactly. She's working it off down here with us children, but she's got something on her mind. He's it. We've got to find him, Father—got to!"

With a dexterous movement of her fingers Carmencita fastened the buttons of her coat and pulled her hat down on her head. "I'm going back to Mother McNeil's," she said, presently, and the large and half-worn rubbers which she had tied on over her shoes were looked at speculatively. "The Damanarkist is going to take me. As soon as Miss Frances tells me Mr. Van's name I'll telephone him to come quick, but I won't tell her that. She might go away again. In that slushy book I read the girl ought to have been shook. She was dying dead in love with her sweetheart and treated him like he was a poodle-dog. Miss Frances wouldn't do that, but I don't know what she might do, and I'm not going to tell her any more than I can help. I want her to think it just happened. Good-by, and go to sleep if you want to, but don't smoke, please. You might drop the sparks on your coat. Good-by."

With a swift kiss she was gone and, meeting the Damanarkist, who was waiting outside the door, they went down the three flights of steps and out into the street. The wind was biting, and, turning up the collar of her coat, Carmencita put her hands in her pockets and made effort to walk rapidly through the thick snow into which her feet sank with each step. For some minutes conversation was impossible. Heads ducked to keep out of their faces the fast-falling flakes, they trudged along in silence until within a few doors of Mother McNeil's house, and then Carmencita looked up.

"Do—do you ever pray, Mr. Leimberg—pray hard, I mean?"

"Pray!" The Damanarkist drew in his breath and laughed with smothered scorn. "Pray! Why should I pray? I cut out prayer when I was a kid. No, I don't pray."

"It's a great comfort, praying is." Carmencita's hand was taken out of her pocket and slipped through the arm of her disillusioned friend. "Sometimes you're just bound to pray. It's like breathing—you can't help it. It—it just rises up. I prayed yesterday for—for something, and it pretty near happened, but—"

"And you think your praying helped to make it happen!" Mr. Leimberg drew Carmencita's hand farther through his arm, and his lips twisted in contemptuous pity. "You think there is a magician up—oh, somewhere, who makes things happen, do you? Think—"

"Yes." Carmencita's feet skipped in spite of the clogging snow. "I think that somewhere there is Somebody who knows about everything, but I don't think He means us to ask for anything we want just because we want it and don't do a lick to get it. I've been praying for months and months about my temper and stamping my foot when I get mad, and if I remember in time and hold down the up-comings my prayers are always answered; but when I let go and forget—" Carmencita whistled a long, low, significant note. "I guess then I don't want to be answered. I want to smash something. But I didn't pray yesterday about tempers and stamping. It was pretty near a miracle that I asked for, though I said I wasn't asking for miracles or—"

"All people who pray ask for miracles. Since the days when men feared floods and famines and pestilence and evil spirits they have cried out for protection and propitiated what to them were gods." The Damanarkist spit upon the ground as if to spew contempt of pretense and cupidity. "I've no patience with it. If there is a God, He knows the cursed struggle life is with most of us; and if there isn't, prayer is but a waste of time."

Carmencita lifted her eyes and for a moment looked in the dark, thin face, embittered by the losing battle of life, as if she had not heard aright, then she laughed softly.

"If I didn't know you, dear Mr. Damanarkist, I'd think you really meant it—what you said. And you don't. I don't guess there's anybody in all the world who doesn't pray sometimes. Something in you does it by itself, and you can't keep it back. You just wait until you feel all lost and lonely and afraid, or so glad you are ready to sing out loud, then you'll do it—inside, if you don't speak out. If I prayed harder to have more sense and not talk so much, and not say what I think about people, and not hate my ugly clothes so, and despise the smell of onions and cabbage and soap-suds, I might get more answers, but you can't get answers just by praying. You've got to work like the mischief, and be a regular policeman over yourself and nab the bad things the minute they poke their heads out. If I'd prayed differently yesterday I wouldn't have been looking for—for somebody all to-day, and be a jumping-jack to-night for fear I won't find him. Did—did you ever have a sweetheart, Mr. Damanarkist?" Before answer could be made Mother McNeil's house was reached, and with steps that were leaps Carmencita was at the door, and a moment later inside. Finding that Miss Frances had returned, she called to Mr. Leimberg to come for her on his way back from the station library where he was to get his book, and breathlessly she ran to Miss Barbour's door and knocked violently upon it.

To the "come in" she entered, eyes big and shining, and cheeks stung into color by the bitter wind; and with a rush forward the hands of her adored friend were caught and held with a tight and nervous grip.

"Miss Frances! Miss Frances!"

Two arms were flung around Miss Barbour's waist, and for a moment the curly brown head was buried on her breast and words refused to come; instead came breathing short and quick; then Carmencita looked up.

"What—oh, what is his name, Miss Frances? He was found and now is lost, and I promised—I promised I'd get you for him!"

Frances Barbour lifted the excited little face and kissed it. "What's the matter, Carmencita? You look as if you'd seen a ghost, and you're talking as if—"

"I'm crazy—I'm not. And there isn't any time to lose. He said he must find you before Christmas. There isn't a soul to make Christmas for him, and he hasn't anybody to buy things for, and he's as lonely as a—a desert person, and he doesn't want any one but you. Oh, Miss Frances, what is his name?"

Frances Barbour leaned back in the chair in which she had taken her seat, and her face whitened. "What are you talking about, and who is—"

"I'm talking about—Him." On her knees Carmencita crouched against her friend's chair, and her long, slender fingers intertwined with those which had suddenly grown nerveless. "I'm talking about your sweetheart, Miss Frances. I found him for you, and then I lost him. I'll tell you how it happened after I know all of his name and—If you had seen his face when I told him I knew you and knew where you lived you'd hurry, you'd—"

"If he wishes to see me, why doesn't he—I mean—" Sudden color surged into the face turned from the child's eager eyes. "What are we talking about, Carmencita? There is evidently some mistake."

"There is. An awful one. It's three years old. And we're talking about the gentleman Father and I met yesterday and lost last night. You're his sweetheart, and he wants you for Christmas and for ever after, and he may be dead by to-morrow if he doesn't find you. He came to our house, and I wrote you a note to come, too, and when you didn't do it he looked as if he'd been hit in the face and couldn't breathe good, and he stumbled down the steps like a blind man, and we'd forgot to tell him our name, and he didn't know the number of our house, and—" She paused for breath and brushed back the curls from her face. "I know he's been looking all day. Where does he live, Miss Frances, and what is his name?"

"If you will tell me of whom you are talking I will tell you whether or not I know him. Until you do—"

"I told you I didn't remember any of his name but the Van part. Don't you know the name of the person you love best on earth? It's his name I want."

Frances Barbour got up and walked over to the bureau and opened its top drawer. "You are asking questions that in any one else I would not permit, Carmencita. I am sure you do not mean to be—"

"I don't mean anything but that I want to know all of Mr. Van's name, and if you don't tell me you are not a Christian!"

With a change of expression Carmencita sprang to her feet and, hands clasped behind her back, she stood erect, her eyes blazing with indignation. "If you don't tell him where you are, don't let him come, I'll think it's all just make-believe and put on, your coming and doing for people you don't really and truly know, and doing nothing for those you do, and letting the ones you love best be lonely and miserable and having Christmas all by themselves when they're starving hungry for you. What is his name?" Carmencita's voice was high and shrill, and her foot was stamped vehemently. "What is his name?"

"Stephen Van Landing."

Face to face, Frances Barbour and Carmencita looked into each other's eyes, then with a leap Carmencita was out of the room and down the steps and at the telephone. With hands that trembled she turned the pages of the book she was holding upside down, then with disgust at her stupidity she righted it and ran her finger down the long line of V's. Finding at last the name she wanted, she called the number, then closed her eyes and prayed fervently, feverishly, and half-aloud the words came jerkily:

"O God, please let him be home, and let him get down here quick before Miss Frances goes out. She and Mother McNeil are going somewhere and won't be back until eleven, and that would be too late for him to come, and—Hello!" The receiver was jammed closer to her ear. "Is that Mr. Van Landing's house? Is he home? He—he—isn't home!" The words came in a little wail. "Oh, he must be home! Are you sure—sure? Where can I get him? Where is he? You don't know—hasn't been at the office all day and hasn't telephoned? He's looking—I mean I guess he's, trying to find somebody. Who is this talking? It's—it's a friend of his, and tell him the minute he comes in to call up Pelham 4293 and ask for Miss Frances Barbour, who wants to talk to him. And listen. Tell him if she's out to come to 14 Custer Street, to Mother McNeil's, and wait until she gets home. Write it down. Got it? Yes, that's it. Welcome. Good-by."

The receiver was hung upon its hook, and for a moment Carmencita stared at the wall; then her face sobered. The strain and tension of the day gave way, and the high hopes of the night before went out as at the snuffing of a candle. Presently she nodded into space.

"I stamped my foot at Miss Frances. Stamped my foot! And I got mad, and was impertinent, and talked like a gutter girl to a sure-enough lady. Talked like—"

Her teeth came down on her lips to stop their sudden quivering, and the picture on the wall grew blurred and indistinct.

"There isn't any use in praying." Two big tears rolled down her cheeks and fell upon her hands. "I might as well give up."