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“Dear Mrs. Walter, you do not remember me,” said this eager girl, crossing the room and taking her by both hands.

“Why, no–yes–do I?” said Mary, crying and laughing together.

“Yes, you will remember, it was at church, at the baptism. My Jennie and your Jamie were christened the same day. And now I hear,–we all know how low he is,–and perhaps he will share my Jennie’s breakfast. Dear Mrs. Walter, do let me try.”

Then Mary saw that the little woman’s cloak and hat were already thrown off,–which had not seemed strange to her before,–and the two passed quietly up stairs together; and Julia Fitch bent gently over him, and cooed to him, and smiled to him, but could not make the poor child smile. And they lifted him so gently on the pillow,–but only to hear him scream. And she brought his head gently to her heart, and drew back the little curtain that was left, and offered to him her life; but he was frightened, and did not know her, and had forgotten what it was she gave him, and screamed again; and so they had to lay him back gently upon the pillow. And then,–as Julia was saying she would stay, and how they could try again, and could do this and that,–then the door-bell rang again, and Mrs. Coleman had herself come round with a little white pitcher, and herself ran up stairs with it, and herself knocked at the door!

The blockade was broken, and

THE MILK HAD COME!

* * * * *

Mary never knew that it was from Huldah Stevens’s milk-can that her boy drank in the first drop of his new life. Nor did Huldah know it. Nor did John know it, nor the paladins who fought that day at his side. Nor did Silas Lovejoy know it.

But the good God and all good angels knew it. Why ask for more?

And you and I, dear reader, if we can forget that always our daily bread comes to us, because a thousand brave men and a thousand brave women are at work in the world, praying to God and trying to serve him, we will not forget it as we meet at breakfast on this blessed Christmas day!