will have a pair of wings made of real feathers, and tipped with gold-all of which I find out from the garrulous little mortals, merry under their rags, merry despite the cold, keen air which nips their tiny fingers; merry, although it is true that for most of them to-morrow (Christmas Day) must be spent in dirty, wretched homes, with little to eat, and no bright fire and loving friends to cheer them. Few of us, 'mid the merry laughter and feasting of our own Christmas Day, dream of the sad, weary, miserable day it is to many a poor child. God grant that as each Christmas Day comes round, the lesson it ought to teach us may grow more deeply rooted in our hearts-the lesson of self-denial and brotherly love. It is so easy to make a child happy, and so delightfully enjoyable and heartrefreshing to see them so, that I wonder sometimes how it is we do not give more time to making them happy than we do. You are tiresome and worrying, doubtless, at times, dear children; but without you merry laughter would soon die out, the world would grow prematurely old and prosy, and the wings of love himself would droop.

"Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead."

But while I have been moralizing my little fairy queen has reached the corner of the street, and is making her way into the Strand, where she stops and flattens her nose against the toy shop window, gazing with longing eyes upon the wax dolls, the mechanical figures, and the pretty Christmas cards. Then away she trips again, until a shop bright with bonbons and sweetmeats makes her mouth water, and the little nose is once more flattened on the broad sheet of plate-glass. Then she hurries on again, for evidently she is conscious of the flight of time, and anxious to reach home, probably, alas, more from fear than love. And so she passes from my sight, and I wend my way back to my hospital work (for I am a surgeon), reflecting, as I often do, on the truth of the proverb, "One half the world knows not how the other half lives." And the very reflection makes me sad, sad on Christmas Eve of all times, because I feel how little after all I do to lighten the burden of others. But the knowledge that in my hospital work is scope enough for all my labours of love that I long at the moment to do, brightens me up again, and as I pass into the wards I resolve to try and do more in the future. The message of love and self-sacrifice that Christmas brings shall not be in vain, and I will strive to remember what I read but a day or two ago, that amid all the joys and sorrows, the hopes, and ambitions that go to make up our life, real "life is but to do a day's work honestly, and death is to come home for a day's wages when the sun goes down."

"Please sir, you are wanted in the accident ward," such was the message which one of the nurses brought to me, as I sat cogitating by the fireside. We doctors are used to trying scenes, accustomed to pain and suffering in young and old, and prepared for any emergency as a rule, but to-night I was quite unprepared for the sight which met my

eyes as I entered the ward. Stretched upon one of the beds-her brown hair all mud-bedraggled, her face white and ghastly, her poor, beseeching eyes wet with tears-lay my little friend the fairy-queen. She was crying bitterly, not because of the pain she suffered, but because now she feared she could not hope to sing her song, wear her white dress or wings, as she had set her heart so much on doing. As I bandaged her poor crushed leg and side, I heard from the cabman who brought her in, that she had been run over while crossing the crowded street, probably very soon after I saw her, as I thought, for the last time. The wheels, I found, had passed over her right leg and side, and crushing two of her ribs, had caused internal injuries of which I had serious reason to fear the result. But she was a brave little woman, and when I had made her more comfortable she managed, as I sat on the bedside and held her hand, to tell me where her mother lived (her father was dead), but she did not seem very anxious to see her (why, I found out afterwards). Her greatest anxiety was to be able to play in the pantomime and wear those beautiful things: and can you blame me that at last I hushed her to sleep with the assurance that if she was very good and kept quiet now, perhaps she might do so after all. And though I knew that the greatest probability was that she would never get up again, and that even if she did, it must be after many weeks, or perhaps months, of patient suffering. I think when I said this to her I felt justified, having in my mind's eye a vision of happiness for her elsewhere.

In letting the relatives know of an accident it is usual for us to send a messenger, but I had taken such a special interest in this child that, as soon as I had given my instructions to the nurse, I decided to go myself. It was three o'clock in the morning as I let myself out, and walked briskly down the quiet street. The policeman on his beat was the solitary occupant with me of that great thoroughfare-the Strand, which so few hours ago had been teeming with life. He cheerily wished me "A Merry Christmas" as I passed, and so brought back to my mind that this was Christmas morning come round once more. As I crossed Waterloo Bridge the river shone like a streak of silver in the pale moonlight, and the great clock at Westminster chimed the quarter past three. Few sights can equal the Thames by moonlight, and I could not help pausing a moment or two to look at the rushing water. Back to my mind at once came the beautiful children's story, that all should read, "The Water Babies," and with it the song of the river

Till I lose myself in the infinite main,

Like a soul that has sinned and is pardoned again."

Past Waterloo station, I turned into Lambeth Marsh, and by the help of another policeman I found the house I wanted up a court, leading out of this dirty neighbourhood. After repeated knocks at the door, a man put his head out of the window of a house opposite, and in a gruff voice asked, "What's yer little game." It was evident the policeman

knew the man, for he replied not very politely, "Don't happen to want you to-night, Simmons; but where's Mrs. Harris." "What do you want wi' her; arsk the bloomin' kid, her's at home, I reckon, if her mother aint." "The child is not here," I said, "she's had an accident." "H'accident eh," said Simmons, "Well, if you want to find her mother you'd better go to the lock-up, for the last time I see'd her she were rather lively, and was being took care on by two bloomin' coppers." "Drunk as usual, eh!" said the policeman, "Ah," said Simmons, and down went the window, and back I suppose went Simmons to bed. "It's no use your going to see her now, sir," said the policeman, "she'll be too drunk to talk to you yet, but won't she just be wild when she hears of the little 'un in the morning! Poor child, she's a pretty little thing; how she lives I dunno, for her mother drinks all she earns almost, and beats her into that. Won't she just swear, my eye! Whew!" and here he gave vent to his imagination by a long, low whistle. And so I left him, and slowly made my way back to the hospital, not at all wondering now how it was the child did not seem anxious to see her mother.

I had interested myself so much in this little waif of humanity that, although feeling tired and needing rest, I could not bring myself to retire to bed without taking one more peep at her, so I went on tiptoe into the ward where she lay. There was but a dim light burning, by the aid of which I could see the nurse standing by the bed, where I had left her two hours ago. She was leaning over the child, apparently smoothing the pillow. A presentiment that all was not well seized me, and I started forward, involuntarily, to question the nurse, but ere the words had passed my lips, the glimpse that I caught of the child had flashed the truth home to me, that she was dead. It was indeed true.

"The fair young face lay smiling,

With the angel light thereon."

She had passed away quietly, so the nurse told me, prettily babbling of wings and fairy-land, and I could not doubt as I stood and looked at her, and the sound of Christmas bells was borne upon my ears, bringing the glad message of a heavenly Father's love, but that the same Father, whose love for children is so great that "their angels do always behold His face," had sent His angels to bear her through the golden doors to that fairyland, where, indeed, she would "sing a new song," wear a white garment, and be clad with angel-wings.

SEEPE-N.