The Greatest Christmas Tales & Poems in One Volume (Illustrated). О. Генри
of laughter resounded through the room. The paper being torn roughly away, poor Miranda stood revealed in all her faded beauty. The pallid waxen face, straggling hair, and old-fashioned dress presented a sorry sight to the greedy eyes which had expected to find something exchangeable for drink. A sorry sight she was to Mary, who had hoped for something so much lovelier. A flush of disappointment came into her cheek, and tears to her eyes.
"Here, take your old doll," said her uncle roughly, thrusting it into her arms. "Take your old doll and get away with her. If that's the best you can find you'd better steal something next time."
Steal something! Had she not in fact stolen it? Mary knew very well that she had, and she flushed pinker yet to think what a fool she had made of herself for nothing. She took the despised doll and retreated into the other room, followed by a chorus of jeers and comments. She banged the door behind her and sat down with poor Miranda on her knees, crying as if her heart would break. She had so longed for a beautiful doll! It did seem too cruel that when she found one it should turn out to be so ugly. She seized poor Miranda and shook her fiercely.
"You horrid old thing!" she said. "Ain't you ashamed to fool me so? Ain't you ashamed to make me think you was a lovely doll with pretty clo'es and white kid shoes? Ain't you?"
She shook Miranda again until her eyeballs rattled in her head. The doll fell to the floor and lay there with closed eyes. Her face was pallid and ghastly. Her bonnet had fallen off, and her hair stuck out wildly in every direction. Her legs were doubled under her in the most helpless fashion. She was the forlornest figure of a doll imaginable. Presently Mary drew her hands away from her eyes and looked down at Miranda. There was something in the doll's attitude as she lay there which touched the little girl's heart. Once she had seen a woman who had been injured in the street,—she would never forget it. The poor creature's eyes had been closed, and her face, under the fallen bonnet, was of this same pasty color. Mary shuddered. Suddenly she felt a warm rush of pity for the doll.
"You poor old thing!" she exclaimed, looking at Miranda almost tenderly. "I'm sorry I shook you. You look so tired and sad and homesick! I wonder if somebody is worrying about you this minute. It was very wicked of me to take you away—on Christmas Eve, too! I wish I had left you where I found you. Maybe some little girl is crying now because you are lost."
Mary stooped and lifted the doll gently upon her knees. As she took Miranda up, the blue eyes opened and seemed to look full at her. Miranda's one beauty was her eyes. Mary felt her heart grow warmer and warmer toward the quaint stranger.
"You have lovely eyes," she murmured. "I think after all you are almost pretty. Perhaps I should grow to like you awfully. You are not a bit like the doll I hoped to have; but that is not your fault." A thought made her face brighten. "Why, if you had been a beautiful doll they would have taken you away and sold you for rum." Her face expressed utter disgust. She hugged Miranda close with a sudden outburst of affection. "Oh, you dear old thing!" she cried. "I am so glad you are—just like this. I am so glad, for now I can keep you always and always, and no one will want to take you away from me."
She rocked to and fro, holding the doll tightly to her heart. Mary was not one to feel a half-passion about anything. "I will make you some new dresses," she said, fingering the old-fashioned silk with a puzzled air. "I wonder why your mother dressed you so queerly? She was not much of a sewer if she made this bonnet!" Scornfully she took off the primitive bonnet and smoothed out the tangled hair. "I wonder what you have on underneath," she said.
With gentle fingers she began to undress Miranda. Off came the green silk dress with its tight "basque" and overskirt. Off came the ruffled petticoat and little chemise edged with fine lace. And Miranda stood in shapeless, kid-bodied ugliness, which stage of evolution the doll of her day had reached.
But there was something more. Around her neck she wore a ribbon; on the ribbon was a cardboard medal; and on the medal a childish hand had scratched the legend,—
Miranda Terry. If lost, please return her to her mother, Angelina Terry, 87 Overlook Terrace.
It was such a card as Miss Terry herself had worn in the days when her mother had first let her and Tom go out on the street without a nurse.
Mary stared hard at the bit of cardboard. 87 Overlook Terrace! Yes, that was where she had found the doll. She remembered now seeing the name on a street corner. Miranda; what a pretty name for a doll! Angelina Terry; so that was the name of the little girl who had lost Miranda. Angelina must be feeling very sorry now. Perhaps she was crying herself to sleep, for it was growing late.
Her two girl cousins came romping into the bedroom. They had been having a hilarious evening.
"Hello, Mary!" they cried. "We heard about your great find!"—"Playing with your old doll, are you? Goin' to hang up her stockin' and see if Santa Claus will fill it?"—"Huh! Santa Claus won't come to this house, I guess!"
Mary had almost forgotten that it was Christmas Eve. There had been nothing in the house to remind her. Perhaps Angelina Terry had hung up a stocking for Miranda at 87 Overlook Terrace. But there would be no Miranda to see it the next morning.
Her cousins teased her for some time, while they undressed, and Mary grew sulky. She sat in her corner and answered them shortly. But presently the room was quiet, for the girls slept easily. Then Mary crept into her little cot with the doll in her arms. She loved Miranda so much that she would never part with her, no indeed; not even though she now knew where Miranda belonged. 87 Overlook Terrace! The figures danced before her eyes maliciously. She wished she could forget them. And the thought of Angelina Terry kept coming to her. Poor Angelina!
"She ain't 'poor Angelina,'" argued Mary to herself. "She's rich Angelina. Doesn't she live in a big house in the swell part of the city? I s'pose she has hundreds of dolls, much handsomer than Miranda, and lots of other toys. I guess she won't miss this one queer old doll. I guess she'd let me keep it if she knew I hadn't any of my own. I guess it ought to be my doll. Anyway, I'm going to keep her. I don't believe Angelina loves Miranda so much as I do."
She laid her cheek against the doll's cold waxen one and presently fell asleep.
But she slept uneasily. In the middle of the night she awoke and lay for hours tossing and unhappy in the stuffy little room. The clock struck one, two, three. At last she gave a great sigh, and cuddling Miranda in her arms turned over, with peace in her heart.
"I will play you are mine, my very own dollie, for just this one night," she whispered in Miranda's ear. "To-morrow will be Christmas Day, and I will take you back to your little mother, Angelina Terry. I can't do a mean thing at Christmas time,—not even for you, dear Miranda."
Thereupon she fell into a peaceful sleep.
Chapter XII.
The Angel Again
Will she bring it back?" asked Miss Terry eagerly, when once more she found herself under the gaze of the Christmas Angel. He nodded brightly.
"To-morrow morning you will see," he said. "It will prove that all I have shown you is really true."
"A pretty child," said Miss Terry musingly. "A very nice child indeed. I believe she looks very much as I used to be myself."
"You see, she is not a thief, after all; not yet," said the Angel. "What a pity that she must live in that sad home, with such terrible people! A sensitive child like her, craving sympathy and affection,—what chance has she for happiness? What would you yourself have been in surroundings like hers?"
"Yes, she is very like what I was. Of course I shall let her keep the doll."
Miss Terry hesitated. The Angel looked at her steadily and his glance seemed to read her half-formed thoughts.
"Surely," he said. "It seems to belong to her, does it not? But is this all? I wonder if something more does not belong to her."
"What