Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/1037



told me. He came frough the hedge. He bwought his picture-books. Santa Claus was in them. Georgie said I must hang my 'tockings up, bofe. All the children will hang theirs up. Then Santa Claus will fill them. Please say he will, favver."

She looked up at him, her brown eyes shining, her little face alight with interest. He never had seen her more animated, more childishly happy. He hesitated, and as she saw the expression on his face her own changed. Her brown eyes filled with tears. She clung to him, almost in terror.

"It ain't twue?" she whispered. "All just a 'tory? like fairies? Oh, favver, it is twue. It is twue! Georgie says it surely is. Some fings have to be twue."

She began to cry—a most unusual thing for Hildegarde to do. Apparently the many disappointments of a short life had at last destroyed even her optimism. Professor Seymour turned rather pale. His scientific friends had warned him that some such time would come, and here it was, with a vengeance! Somehow the usual arguments did not spring to his lips, the usual sense of keen disapproval of traditions did not fill his heart. He wondered why. The tradition of Christmas was an especially beautiful one, with its Christ-child—

"Some fings have to be true." Strange wisdom that for a little child. The professor bowed his head over her brown curls, while many thoughts came to him.