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Page 10
"Fiddlestick!" Miss Terry tried to say. But the word would not come.
"Now you have lost the old belief and the old love," went on the Angel.
"Now you have studied books and read wise men's sayings. You understand the
higher criticism, and the higher charity, and the higher egoism. You don't
believe in mere giving. You don't believe in the Christmas economics,--you
know better. But are you happy, dear Angelina?"
Again Miss Terry thrilled at the sound of her name so sweetly spoken; but
she answered nothing. The Angel replied for her.
"No, you are not happy because you have cut yourself off from the things
that bring folk together in peace and good-will at this holy time. Where
are your friends? Where is your brother to-night? You are still hard and
unforgiving to Tom. You refused to see him to-day, though he wrote so
boyishly, so humbly and affectionately. You have not tried to make any soul
happy. You don't believe in _me_, the Christmas Spirit."
There is such a word as Fiddlestick, whatever it may mean. But Miss Terry's
mind and tongue were unable to form it.
"The Christmas spirit!" continued the Angel. "What is life worth if one
cannot believe in the Christmas spirit?"
With a powerful effort Miss Terry shook off her nightmare sufficiently to
say, "The Christmas spirit is no real thing. I have proved it to-night. It
is not real. It is a humbug!"
"Not real? A humbug?" repeated the Angel softly. "And you have proved it,
Angelina, this very night?"
Miss Terry nodded.
"I know what you have done," said the Angel. "I know very well. How keen
you were! How clever! You made a test of Chance, to prove your point."
Again Miss Terry nodded with complacency.
"What knowledge of the world! What grasp of human nature!" commented the
Angel, smiling. "It is like you mere mortals to say, 'I will make my test
in my own way. If certain things happen, I shall foresee what the result
must be. If certain other things happen, I shall know that I am right.'
Events fall out as you expect, and you smile with satisfaction, feeling
your wisdom justified. It ought to make you happy. But does it?"
Miss Terry regarded the Angel doubtfully.
"Look now!" he went on, holding up a rosy finger. "You are so
near-sighted! You are so unimaginative! You do not dream beyond the thing
you see. You judge the tale finished while the best has yet to be told. And
you stake your faith, your hope, your charity upon this blind human
judgment,--which is mere Chance!"
Miss Terry opened her lips to say, "I saw--" but the Angel interrupted her.
"You saw but the beginning," he said. "You saw but the first page of each
history. Shall I turn over the leaves and let you read what really
happened? Shall I help you to see the whole truth instead of a part? On
this night holy Truth, which is of Heaven, comes for all men to see and to
believe. Look!"
CHAPTER VIII
JACK AGAIN
The Christmas Angel gently waved his hand to and fro. Gradually, as Miss
Terry sat back in her chair, the library grew dark; or rather, things faded
into an indistinguishable blur. Then it seemed as if she were sitting at a
theatre gazing at a great stage. But at this theatre there was nothing
about her, nothing between her and the place where things were happening.
* * * * *
First she saw two little ragamuffins quarreling over something in the snow.
She recognized them. They were the two Jewish boys who had picked up the
Jack-in-the-box. An officer appeared, and they ran away, the bigger boy
having possession of the toy; the smaller one with fists in his eyes,
bawling with disappointment.
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