THE ANGEL AGAIN
"Will she bring it back?" asked Miss Terry eagerly, when once more she
found herself under the gaze of the Christmas Angel. He nodded brightly.
"To-morrow morning you will see," he said. "It will prove that all I have
shown you is really true."
"A pretty child," said Miss Terry musingly. "A very nice child indeed. I
believe she looks very much as I used to be myself."
"You see, she is not a thief, after all; not _yet_," said the Angel. "What
a pity that she must live in that sad home, with such terrible people! A
sensitive child like her, craving sympathy and affection,--what chance has
she for happiness? What would you yourself have been in surroundings like
hers?"
"Yes, she is very like what I was. Of course I shall let her keep the
doll."
Miss Terry hesitated. The Angel looked at her steadily and his glance
seemed to read her half-formed thoughts.
"Surely," he said. "It seems to belong to her, does it not? But is this
all? I wonder if something more does not belong to her."
"What more?" asked Miss Terry shortly.
"A home!" cried the Angel.
Miss Terry groped in her memory for a scornful ejaculation which she had
once been fond of using, but there was no such word to be found. Instead
there came to her lips the name, "Mary."
The Angel repeated it softly. "_Mary._ It is a blessed name," he said.
"Blessed the roof that shelters a Mary in her need."
There was a long silence, in which Miss Terry felt new impulses stirring
within her; impulses drawing her to the child whose looks recalled her own
childhood. The Angel regarded her with beaming eyes. After some time he
said quietly, "Now let us see what became of your last experiment."
Miss Terry started. It seemed as if she had been interrupted in pleasant
dreaming. "_You_ were the last experiment," she said. "I know what became
of you. Here you are!"
"Yet more may have happened than you guessed," replied the Angel meaningly.
"I have tried to show you how often that is the case. Look again."
Without moving from her chair Miss Terry seemed to be looking out on her
sidewalk, where, so it seemed, she had just laid the pink figure of the
Angel. She saw the drunken man approach. She heard his coarse laugh; saw
his brutal movement as he kicked the Christmas token into the street. In
sick disgust she saw him reel away out of sight. She saw herself run down
the steps, rescue the image, and bring it into the house. Surely the story
was finished. What more could there be?
But something bade her vision follow the steps of the wretched man. Down
the street he reeled, singing a blasphemous song. With a whoop he rounded a
corner and ran into a happy party which filled sidewalk and street, as it
hurried in the direction from which he came. Good-naturedly they jostled
him against the wall, and he grasped a railing to steady himself as they
swept by. It was the choir on their way to carol in the next street. Before
them went the cross-bearer, lifting high his simple wooden emblem.
[Illustration: HE GRASPED A RAILING TO STEADY HIMSELF]
The eyes of the drunken man caught sight of this, and wavered. The presence
of the crowd conveyed no meaning to his dazed brains. But there was
something in the familiar symbol which held his vision. He looked, and
crossed himself, remembering the traditions of his childhood. Some of
the boys were humming as they went the stirring strains of an ancient
Christmas march known to all nations; a carol which began, some say, as a
rousing drinking chorus.
The familiar strain touched some chord in the sodden brain. The man gave a
feeble whinny, trying to follow the melody. He pulled himself together and
lurched forward in a sudden impulse to join the band of pilgrims. But by
the time he had taken three steps they had vanished, miraculously, as it
seemed to him.
"Begorra, they're gone!" he cried. "Who were they? Were they rale folks?
What was it they was singin'?"
He sank back helplessly on a flight of steps. "_Ve-ni-te a-do-re-mus!_" he
croaked in a quavering basso. And his tangled mind went through strange
processes. Suddenly, there came to him in a flash of exaggerated memory the
figure of the Christmas Angel which not ten minutes earlier he had kicked
into the street. A pious horror fell upon him.
"Mither o' mercy!" he cried, again crossing himself. "What have I been an'
done? It was a howly image; an' what did I do to ut? Lemme go back an' find
ut, an' take ut up out av the street."
Greatly sobered by his fear, he staggered down the block and around the
corner to the steps of Miss Terry's house.
"This is the place," he mused. "I know ut; here's where the frindly
lam'post hild me in its arrums. I rimimber there was a dark house forninst
me. Here's where ut lay on the sidewalk, all pink an' pretty. An' I kicked
ut into the street! Where is ut now? Where gone? Howly Mither! Here's the
spot where ut fell, look now! The shape of uts little body and the wings of
ut in the snow. But 'tis gone intirely!" He rubbed his eyes and crossed
himself again. "'Tis flown away," he muttered. "'Tis gone back to Hiven to
tell Mary Mither o' the wicked thing I done this night. Oh, 'tis a miracle
that's happened! An' oh! The wicked man I am, drunk and disorderly on the
Howly Eve!"
"O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant!"
Once more he heard the familiar strain taken up lustily by many voices.
"Hear all the world singin' on the way to Bethlehem!" he said, and the
stupor seemed to leave his brain. He no longer staggered.
"I'll run an' join 'em, an' I won't drink another drop this night." He
looked up at the starry sky. "Maybe the Angel hears me. Maybe he'll help
me to keep straight to-morrow. It might be my Guardian Angel himsilf that I
treated so! Saints forgive me!"
With head bowed humbly, but no longer reeling, he moved away towards the
sound of music.
* * * * *
"You were his Guardian Angel," said Miss Terry, when once more she saw the
figure on the mantel-shelf. And she spoke with reverent gentleness.
The Angel smiled brightly. "The Christmas Spirit is a guardian angel to
many," he said. "Never again despise me, Angelina. Never again make light
of my influence."
"Never again," murmured Miss Terry half unconsciously. "I wish it were not
too late--"
"It is never too late," said the Christmas Angel eagerly, as if he read her
unspoken thought. "Oh, never too late, Angelina."