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opened half-way, and the clergyman's clear-cut speech sounded through it.

"Why don't you put that bag on the floor? You hold on to it as if it were treasure.'

"It is treasure," said the big man, briefly.

"Do you mean-Sidney, you're not driving home alone to-night with the men's wages? I don't like it. It's six miles and you'll have to go through the River Millsthe other road's impassable. There's a bad lot of roughs there just now. You have no right to run such a risk. How much are you carrying?"

"Three thousand dollars."

The man outside drew a sharp breath as if the distinct words had hit him. Three thousand dollars!

The clergyman inside repeated them. "Three thousand dollars! It's too much to carry after dark through a nest of banditti. Give me the money. I'll take it to the rectory to-night, and to-morrow you'll all be over to service, and you can fetch it back. How is that?"

"You've a lonely drive, too."

"Only two miles," said Harding. "And there's no danger for me. Nobody suspects a parson of money." Maxwell considered, hesitated. "I think I'll accept your offer, Doctor," he said, at last.

There was a whistle down the track, and a wave of humanity drew together; the train pulled in, and the man hovering in the background waited to see Mr. Maxwell, of Maxwell Field, in a fur-lined ulster with its collar and cuffs of sable, and the thin clergyman in his overcoat a little gray at the seams, enter a car together, before he sprang unnoticed into the car behind them.

The two big children and their small mother sat on the rug before the fire, the fire being an especial luxury for Christmas Eve.

"Say "The Night Before Christmas' again, mother," begged the boy; "you promised you'd say it next."

"No, she didn't, Benny," objected the girl. "She only promised she'd say it again; she hasn't said 'While Shepherds Watched' at all yet, or told us

"Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,' the woman began, and went on, as many women have begun and gone on with the charming old poem, to children on Christmas Eve. "Now just one

more, children, dear, and you really must go to bed. It's very late-look! It's almost nine," and the girl and the boy cried out together.

"Oh, the Beasts! the Beasts!"

They pressed against her, a head on either shoulder, and held her hands in theirs, while she told them a tale of a boy in a German forest whose father and mother were so poor that there was not enough to eat in the house. She told them how he lay in his cot on Christmas Eve, and heard them plan to kill his two friends, the old horse, Friedel, and the old cow, Minna, rather than let them starve to death; how he stole into the kitchen and found the coarse bread and the milk that were saved for his own breakfast, and carried them out to the stable; how, as he came to the door, he heard strange hoarse voices speaking low, and listened and found that it was Friedel and Minna talking together; how then he remembered that once a year, at midnight on Christmas Eve, dumb beasts may find speech, in memory of the night when the Christ-child lay among beasts, in the manger; how Hans went in boldly then and gave the animals his breakfast; how they told him in rusty, unused voices, that beneath the empty stall of the stable was a treasure of gold which would make his mother and father richer than they could dream; and how Hans told his father and mother, who dug for the treasure and found it, and were happy with the horse and cow, and rich ever after.

"Now, chickens, you must go to your roosts; it's very late."

"Father'll be home before morning, won't he?" asked the girl. "It wouldn't be Christmas without father, would it, mother?"

"I can't bear to have him out so late. Father isn't well -he ought to go South-I wish he could go, but we haven't money enough."

"I wish I could find a lot of money like Hans, for father," said the girl.

As the children lay in their beds they kept thinking of the story of how dumb brutes may talk once a year on Christmas Eve.

"Do you believe it's true, Benny?" said Alice. "Mother didn't say it wasn't, you know."

"Then it's true, and I believe it's true," said Benny,

stoutly. "I'm glad they can. I heard Nigger say "corn bread" one day."

"Nigger's out in the barn," reflected Alice. "Father took Mr. Jarvis' horse because Nigger's foot was lame. Benny-don't go to sleep, Benny-listen! I've got an idea. Why can't we go to the stable to-night-it's Christmas Eve-and listen to Nigger talking, like Hans listened to Friedel and Minna? And maybe he'll know about some treasure, and we could get lots of money, and give it to father to go South with. Mother would be glad."

Two muffled little figures crept through the shadowy house and out over the white lawn, misty with still-falling snow, and up the slope to the door of the stable. An hour before a man had hurried along the road from town, a powerful man, walking fast. As he walked he spoke to himself in a low tone.

"The note about Pat O'Hara's broken leg ought to delay him an hour. Lucky I remembered where the horse and trap would be kept."

The ghost of a boy caught his arm and clung to him and went with him down the road.

"You couldn't hurt him," it said, "You couldn't do it in this place where the good years of your life were passed. You've played hide-and-seek in that barn of the Hardings. Can you go there and take money from him?"

I

"It's not his money-I wouldn't rob him. It's money that ought to be mine-it belongs to Sidney Maxwell, my cousin, and it's Maxwell money-family money. ought to be as rich as he. I hate him. I'm his flesh and blood and he never throws a thought to me. My chances are not all gone-there's one left. I'll get that money which ought to be mine, and to-morrow I'll be off for China, and take up Bill Bacon's offer, and be an honest man, by Heaven, a successful one this time! I've got it in me, and I've learned my lesson. I'll work hard and earn my life, and I'll send back this three thousand to Sidney Maxwell with my first savings."

He found his way readily down the shadowy drive to the parsonage stable, and sat drawn together in the thick straw, waiting. A light sound without set his nerves a-tingle. A late moon had risen and against the white

ground he saw, astonished, the figures of two children sharply silhouetted.

"He's not talkin', Alice," the boy said. "Let's go back-I'd rather go to bed."

"Maybe he doesn't know it's Christmas," the girl suggested. "Let's sing a carol so he'll remember.

The man in the stall listened.

In a low tone, because it was a mysterious business they were on, the two sang. From a mile away down the road came faintly the sound of hoof-beats. Alice and Benny, standing patient, thrilled suddenly as a strange, hoarse voice issued from the darkness.

"Merry Christmas, children!" the voice said.

The girl clutched the boy's shoulder. "He's talkin'Nigger's talkin'," Benny announced, interested, but imperturbed.

"Merry Christmas, Nigger," said Alice. "I'm so glad you really can talk-it must seem nice after being dumb." "Yes, it's nice. You must go back to the house, children, at once. You'll catch cold."

"But, Nigger," Alice pleaded, "we want to talk to you -we want to ask you some questions."

"What questions?" the hoarse voice demanded. "Be quick!"

"We'd like some hidden treasure," explained Benny, "to send father South where it's warm, 'cause he's sick. We want you to tell us where to get some treasure for father."

"There isn't any buried around here. But if you're good children and go straight into the house, then your father is going to have enough money to take him South -this winter or next. Now run quickly."

a

When Doctor Harding drove in, the figure of a man stood black in the patch of brightness. "Who is that?" he asked, cheerily.

"It's a friend-Carl Maxwell."

"Carl Maxwell! What do you mean-how can it be Carl Maxwell?

The man swung forward. "Look at me," he said, and pulled away his hat. Harding looked searchingly, and with a quick movement set on the floor the bag he held and caught the other's hand.

"My boy, I'm glad to see you," he said. "Help me un

harness. We must get a fire and something to eat as soon as possible."

When the horse stood cared for and blanketed in its stall, Maxwell swung across the stable, and lifted the small black bag

"I'll take that, Carl," the clergyman spoke, quietly. "No-let me carry it for you.'

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There was a second's hesitation; Harding's fingers loosened; he turned to the door; Carl Maxwell held the bag in his hands. Down the slope the clergyman led the way. He threw open the door and stood aside to let his guest enter.

"I don't know about you, Carl, but I'm hungry." He held out a plate of sandwiches.

The young fellow set the bag down hurriedly, and stretched out his hand. He was shivering and he looked starved. Then the hand dropped. His teeth chattered, and he stared blankly into the clergyman's face.

"I came here to rob you," he said.

Harding gazed at him; his glance wandered to the black bag; he turned his back, and bent over the coffee, bubbling over an alcohol lamp.

"We'll talk that over later, Carl," he said. "Sit by the fire-you're cold. And drink this coffee."

Ten minutes later the man stood before the fire and told his story. He finished the recital with a look of bitterness in his eyes.

"I believe I'm a fool," he said. "The money means the chance of my life for a start-and I've no other chance. I meant to take it, until the children came, and then I lost my nerve. Alice has grown a lot. I taught her her first word-do you remember? I didn't do the beast act entirely to get rid of them. I did it so they wouldn't be disappointed. I'm a fool. I'd planned the thing, and I ought to have put it through."

"Carl, I've something to tell you about your cousin Sidney," said the clergyman.

"I don't want to hear it. When I saw him walking with you to-day in his furred overcoat, and his prosperity, I wanted to kill him. He's forgotten I'm alive. It's nothing to him that I'm strangling-in the depths."

"That's where you're mistaken. It's very much to him. He told me to-day that Christmas never came but the thought of you was with him; that he had tried in

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