kindly, but for hay-stack needles there was no time and he was
directed to headquarters. To find a house, number unknown, on a
street, name unknown, of a party, full name again unknown, was too
much of a puzzle for busy times like these. Any other time than
Christmas--He was turned from that an inquiry from a woman with a
child in her arms might be answered.

"Any other time than Christmas!"

With a sense of demoralization it was dawning on him that he might not
find her, or Carmencita, in time for Christmas, and he _must_ find
them. A great hunger for the day to be to him what it seemed to be to
others possessed him feverishly, and with eyes that saw what they had
never seen before he watched, as he walked, the faces of the people
who passed, and in his heart crept childish longing to buy something
for somebody, something that was wanted very much, as these people
seemed to be doing. He had made out the checks he usually sent to
certain institutions and certain parties at this season of the year
for his head clerk to mail. By this time they had been received, but
with them had gone no word of greeting or good will; his card alone
had been inclosed. A few orders had been left at various stores, but
with them went no Christmas spirit. He wondered how it would feel to
buy a thing that could make one's face look as Carmencita's had looked
when she made her purchase of the night before. It was a locket she
had bought--a gold locket.

In a whispered confidence while in the car she had told him it was for
her mother's picture. The picture used to be in her father's watch,
but the watch had to be sold when he was sick, after her mother's
death, and he had missed the touch of the picture so. She knew, for