A. M. Williamson

“ Suze senior set her wits to work. She knew that, in those days of war, not many hotels were open in Mentone. She questioned Angel, and, learning that the hotel garden was high above the sea, with glass screens to keep off the wind and a view where you saw the town all piled together on the side of a hill with dark, tall trees on top, she guessed the Bellevue. ”

“ Angel realized that they must be husband and wife. They were about the right age for each other, she thought; and even a child could see by the look in their eyes that they loved one another dearly. "You pretend now that you're not hurt, but you are; you're suffering— your face shows it. ”

“ People were extraordinarily subtle, sometimes, when they had an object to gain, as she had learned in her girlhood through sad experience. She, too, had had faith in everybody when she was Angel's age, and even years older, but her father had thought it best that for self-protection she should be enlightened early. She did not quite believe in Angel's fairies of the fairy garden. ”

“ Maybe it was just as wise, if not wiser, to believe people might be good until you found out that they were bad, instead of beginning the other way around!
"What would you have done in my place?" she asked Angel.
The child was silent for a moment. "If he wouldn't keep the ring, why, I s'pose I should have thought and thought of some other way to make him and big Suze and little Suze and Paulette—and the kitten—all happy for Christmas!" she exclaimed, on an inspiration. "Oh, mother, we must do something. I shall have a horrid Christmas if we can't. ”

“ You never think of yourself, except of what you can do for me and them. This Christmas tree you've brought! Even if you'd been well, it would have been a big adventure, toiling up into the mountains, tired after a day's work in the garden; looking for the right tree, sure to grow in the worst place to get at; cutting it down with an ax that's no more than a toy, and then bringing the 16 thing home on your back! Why, it would be hard labor for a strong man——"
"Love gives strength," he soothed her, stroking her ruffled dark hair; and Angel thought that she had never seen a man's hand so thin. ”

“ IF Angel Odell hadn't had a French nursery governess, and if that French governess hadn't suddenly recognized her lost lover in a wounded French sergeant on the sea-front, the Valois story would have been a Christmas tragedy instead of—what it turned out to be. This was strange, because neither the little American girl nor her governess nor her governess's lover had ever heard of the Valois family, nor had the Valois family heard of them. But most things that happen are strange, if seen from every point of view. ”

“ It was just then that a woman suddenly appeared from, it seemed, nowhere in particular. Angel's heart gave a jump. What if the woman—just a mere woman, not a fairy at all—owned the garden, and should scold the little stranger girl for coming in, sitting down, and playing with her kitten? ”

“ This would have been rather frightening if the realization hadn't come just outside the half-open gates of a garden lovely as fairy-land. It had been winter in Paris. Here it was summer; 4 yet to-morrow was going to be Christmas. Angel could not understand. The thing was like a dream, and held her fascinated. She was an imaginative child, and it thrilled her to say to herself, "Maybe this garden is fairyland!" Although, of course, the common-sense side of her answered, "Pooh! You know very well, you silly, there's no such place." ”

“ Elinor Odell in the act of descending from her cab could see through an uncurtained window the man, the woman, and their two children, hand in hand, making a ring round the dark-green pyramid of pine-branches.
She and Angel had come alone. Mademoiselle Rose was staying at home to write Claude that Madame Odell had given her Christmas free—the charming, kind lady! Now "the charming, kind lady" and her little girl knocked almost timidly at the front door of the red-roofed white cottage—a queer, low-browed cottage built for peasants, in the old days when Mentone belonged to the Prince of Monaco. ”

“ Suze echoed, with a laugh that came trembling out of tears.
"Yes," insisted Paul, "trust me. Your husband isn't an artist for nothing! Come along. No more time for repining if the tree's to be ready before the children's bedtime. I tell you, it will be a great work!"
"You're the most wonderful man in the world!" breathed Suze senior. "And we adore you—our soldier who fights for us always. Oh, but listen! There's Paulette calling me. I told the two I'd be back before they finished their Christmas present for father. ”

“ Is it not so, Madame!" cried Rose, working up to the favor she meant to beg for to-morrow.
"Grandpa is always saying I have a great business head," Angel remarked, with extreme self-satisfaction. "And, Mummy, if you think it's a splendid idea, can't we go out now and 'range it all with Paul and Suze? I should love to. It's the only thing I'd like to make my Christmas happy with grandpa's money. If we went in a carriage and made the horses run fast maybe we could see the Christmas tree." ”

“ Persons in a garden whither Angel had strayed or been invited had apparently persuaded the innocent and impulsive little girl to give away a valuable diamond ring. Prejudice instantly built up within Elinor a barrier against some one unknown. She didn't mean to reproach Angel, but she did mean to catechize her, and she intended to get back her father's last 35 year's Christmas present. ”

“ It seemed to her that Paul Valois looked at her almost pityingly. "Madame," he said, "will you not grant a man the happiness of giving, not of selling, the one thing in his power, on the eve of Christmas? It has made me happy that through us, in a way, you have been saved from pain at this time when the world should be glad. To pay me for that joy would kill it."
Elinor blushed. "But—but—my little girl tells me—" She stumbled on, awkwardly, and abashed by her awkwardness. "I think by accident she overheard that—that—you had some trouble. Do you think you're right to refuse? ”

“ It seemed awful to Angel that a grown-up woman should cry—cry in a beautiful garden, where she thought she was alone. And on Christmas Eve! Angel felt quite sick. Her throat filled as if she, too, were going to cry. It was all she could do not to give the kitten a nervous squeeze. She was seized with a wild wish to rush out and try to comfort the woman; but instinct even more than childish shyness held her back. Angel knew that, if she had stolen away to cry where she hoped not to be seen, she would hate to have 11 a strange person jump out and surprise her. ”

“ So what could Paul and Suze do but say "yes," and add that it was the happiest night of their lives also.
"Then it's settled, isn't it, mother?" breathed Angel. "Is that all, or have I forgotten anything?"
Elinor bent over her, on a sudden impulse. "Father has sent you a wonderful doll from Paris, dear," she whispered. "I haven't opened the box, but I know what's in it, for a letter came in the post: a doll that talks and walks and has real hair and eyelashes. So, would you like to spare a family of dolls I bought for you before I had the letter? ”

“ Suze senior answered. "But see, it's going to be twilight soon! I think we must try to find out where Angel Odell lives, and take her home. She says she's lost—so her mother will be anxious."
"She thinks I'm with my governess," said Angel.
"Oh, fairy angels have governesses," the elder sister mourned, another illusion gone. "That's as bad as being a real child and going to school." The two spoke English or French indiscriminately, seeming hardly to know which language they used, but luckily Angel understood French very well, thanks to Paris and Mademoiselle Rose. ”

“ Grandpa's sent me five hundred to buy myself just what I like, to make my Christmas happy."
"And what would you like?" asked Elinor, thinking that the child's mind had slid away from the Valois family.
"I'd like to make the people in the fairy garden happy."
"But, a check's the same as money," her mother explained. "You just said yourself he isn't the kind of man—"
"Oh, but I wouldn't give him the check," Angel cut in, importantly. "I—I'd lend it to him. No, I mean I'd lend him all he'd paid the nasty man who really owned the garden. ”

“ They might not have made it so easy to find them in their fairy garden as it was now! But even though their name was known, it would be difficult to get back the ring, unless she—Elinor Odell—chose to take strenuous measures. It would be so simple for these people to say, when inquiries were made about the ring, and a sum of money offered in its place, that they had never seen it; that some one outside must have noticed the glittering thing tied to the cat's neck, and stolen it. ”

“ Isn't that a mockery, when Monsieur Vignal knows as well as we do we haven't a penny to live on—that the Riviera's empty these war days, that nobody buys our plants, and you can't fill orders from over the Swiss or Italian frontiers, even if you could get half as many as Siegel's lying books showed?"
"Vignal means well," said the man. "It's good of him to advise me without asking for pay."
"No more than a Frenchman ought to do for a Belgian!" the woman retorted. "The refugees who ask for charity get all the sympathy. We, who ask only for work—"
"We have received kindness, too. ”

“ Anyhow, the children are as pretty as fairies, but I don't think they can be as happy, because their mother cried, and their father's been wounded, and cheated, too, by a horrid man who's going to take everything away from them, even the garden, and the oranges—the last things they've got to eat. ”

“ At first, when Mademoiselle Rose gave a little scream and rushed away from her charge to a good-looking soldier with his arm in a sling, Angel stood still, extremely interested. Her mother did not know about the lost lover. One need not tell all one's heart 1 secrets to one's employer on being engaged at a Paris agency! ”

“ But if we're turned out?" 17
"We must do as Adam and Eve did when they were turned out of Eden. They found work, I suppose. So shall we. Though God knows it almost kills me to think of what I've brought on you and the babies." ”

“ He isn't—he isn't that kind of a man. Don't you remember, Mummy, you say that often to me, when I ask you in 52 the street to give money to some one who looks poor?"
Elinor hung her head like a child. Angel knew more about character by instinct, it seemed, than she had learned through her years of experience! ”