“Don’t hurry,” said the little cripple. “I know you must have lots to do, so many lives to bless, so many people to make glad, but if you’ll only wait till father comes, I know he’ll get the blessing too.”

The stranger mumbled something with a laugh, but the child was too intense to hear. His little hands were clasped, he was praying inwardly to keep his guest.

A footstep sounded in the wood. The man sprang to his feet, grabbed something into his pocket and rustled like one demented out of the house.

The wind blew in with cruel sharpness. The night outside was black as pitch.

The child stood on the doorstep calling loudly, but the man had vanished from his sight.

“And he never took the gifts I would have given him,” he said slowly. “But I am happy, oh, so happy, that he came.”

THE years passed on, not weary years, but glad years full of unspoken joy. The memory of the Christmas Guest, who came too soon, still lived and breathed in Oscar’s consciousness.

Since that eventful night, the cottage built amid the pines had somehow lost its loneliness. A sweet and lovely something had fallen like a halo round about the walls.

In his own mind the cripple smiled; vaguely he knew it was the aura of the guest.

He did not pray now for his healing. He did not even pray that the guest would come again. He lived in the sweet consciousness of memory, the peaceful satisfaction which knows that all is well. He served his father faithfully in the little things that he could do around the home, and when the day was over he would sit beneath the pines. Few people passed the lonely house, and few if any stopped to talk. For it seemed to them like sacrilege to break upon the restful stillness which touched them like a benediction from a healing angel’s hand.

Christmas had come again. Oscar loved Christmas: it brought to him a deeper memory of his guest.