GWENDOLINE. 119

‘and, with the electric lights outside, filled the room with
light.

“Tt must be morning,” thought Gwendoline ; but, spying
the moon, she concluded it was still night. “I wonder if
Santa Claus has come,” thought she. “TI believe I will go
and see. I can just peep; so he won’t see me if he is there.”
So she slipped down softly from bed, the dear little baby feet
making no noise upon the carpet, and then she crept quietly into
- the next room, which was the nursery. She stood a moment in
the door-way, looking like a little cherub in her white gown.
She listened,—there was not a sound; it was rather dark, for
the curtains were drawn in front of the bay-window where the
tree stood, but Gwendoline could soon see quite plainly by the
light of the fire. She looked around at the fireplace; surely
the stockings looked very humpy, and there was something
sticking out of the top of each. Gwendoline ran forward, and
peeped into every one. “I b’lieve I fordot which is mine,”
she said. ‘“ Maybe I can tell if I take e’v’y one down.” The
stockings were all the same size, having been bought especially
for this purpose, for it would never have done to hang up
Gwendoline’s tiny little one by the side of Curtis’s big one;
there was no telling, therefore, by the size.

Gwendoline climbed upon a chair, and taking down each
stocking, she laid it on the floor in front of the fire, then she
sat down on the rug and drew out the different articles. The
stockings contained much the same things: in the toe a piece