Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Mary had been reading the days backward, like a little Oriental; and now only one was left—one long, long day—and Christmas would have come again. It seemed a whole year of years since the last; yet some of its brightness had lasted even until now. Yes, Christmas was really coming. If she doubted it for a moment, she had only to run to the window and look down the back area. Lying there, in the light of the street-lamp, just where the round-faced market-boy had dumped it from his wagon yesterday—waiting for the lights and perfumes and splendors which should atone, in one delightful hour, for its wounded bark and wrenched fiber and all the wonderful forest-life left behind forever—was the real story-telling spruce, the Christmas tree to be! The wind soughed through its prostrate branches, lifting the dark tassels, where a few crisp snow-crystals still sparkled, and disclosing little green nooks, which might have held each one a snow-bird lodger, wrapped in his blanket of grey down. What a bit of the country it was, let down between those smoky brick walls. Mabel had not forgotten her one Christmas at grandpa's. The great pure fields of snow, with here and there a bush crowned with its tuft of winter berries; the pretty white hoods on all the fence posts; the glittering icicle-fringe hanging from the stable roof; the yellow sheaf fastened at the gable of the old barn—for grandpa had copied the beautiful Swedish custom of giving a Christmas dinner to the birds—all these and much more she could see plainly, as if the little spruce tree had been a magic-glass. Eight o'clock struck—Mabel's bed-time, at last; and she went upstairs with her curly head one whirl of delightful excitement. Nora undressed her and tucked her in; then she turned down the night lamp, and bade her "Be still, now, and go to sleep; there's a dear!" Mabel shut her eyes fast. It was of no use; they flew open every other minute. Then she put her fingers on the lids, and held tight. By and by the little hands slipped away slowly, and lay with their pink palms upward on the pillow; and that was the way mamma found them when she came into the nursery to kiss her little daughter, and make sure that she was snug and quiet in her warm bed. No need to hold the blue-veined eyelids now, for their brown lashes swept the rosy cheeks, and the breath came softly from the parted lips. Mabel was smiling in her sleep. "I wonder what she is dreaming about," said mamma to herself. She stood on the polished floor of a building far vaster than anything she had ever imagined. There was nothing to bound her vision, as she looked up, up, so far that her eyes ached with straining; for no roof rested on the wonderful carved columns, whose capitals lost themselves in the blue heaven, where the moon hung like a golden horn overflowing in a foam of stars. In the center of the vast hall there stood a wonderful tree, spreading its green boughs far on every side, and lifting its top so high that the very stars seemed to hang amid its branches like glittering dew. Strains of soft music rose and fell, and the air was dense with the perfume of rare flowers, unclosing, one by one, their delicate petals, and breathing out their souls in exquisite fragrance. But most marvelous of all was the fruit of the magical tree. All Wonderland seemed to have emptied itself upon the branches, blazing with thousands of many-colored lights. Toys and bon-bons; pictures, books and costly garments; half-open caskets, where priceless jewels lay on silken cushions; ivory keys and tremulous strings, whence the spirit of music panted to be free; all things rare and beautiful from land or sea. There was room for all, and none were wanting; for this was the Christmas Tree of the world! And now a long procession of gaily-dressed children entered the wide doorway. Denser and denser grew the throng. The very lamps seemed pale in the light of so many sparkling eyes, and the fairy-like music could scarce be heard for the echoes of happy laughter. And suddenly, responsive to the fluttering of shining curls and costly robes, the tree stirred, as if to the touch of invisible fingers. Here a branch shook lightly, there a twig trembled, and softly as the first snow-flakes of winter the rare gifts floated down to the thousand white hands which flashed upward to receive them. Mabel held fast her own. All she had wanted most was in her arms—the blonde-haired doll which smiled on her from the toy-shop window yesterday; the little bracelet, pearl and gold, like cousin Nell's; the set of ermine, with its heavy blue tassels. She could not speak for very rapture. At last the tree was emptied of all but lights and flowers. Then a great hush fell upon the place, and some strange, irresistible influence drew all eyes upward. A moving trail of strange white light crossed the deep blue of the starlit sky. Nearer and nearer it came; and now, in the midst of the colorless radiance, she saw a floating, childlike form. A whisper, like the wind in fallen leaves, ran through the great room; "It is the Christ Child!" And by one common impulse the throng swayed to right and left, and the stranger, white-robed and crowned with light, walked between the parted ranks. There was no smile on the beautiful face. Straight forward, far beyond them all, gazed the clear eyes, darkened, it seemed, by some mournful shadow. Mabel, too, looked, with a sudden tremor and doubt at her heart, and saw, outside the happy crowd, other children, cowering in the half-gloom, clothed in rags, grimy with dirt. Little pinched faces, lined with the old story of want, misery and sin, looked out from wild Medusa locks of unkempt hair, despair and disappointment in their eager hungry eyes. No room for them within the charmed circle of joy and beauty! No little gift from all that store to fill one empty, outstretched hand! And now she thought: Yes, surely among those shrinking forms were some not wholly unfamiliar. Little Joe, whom she had seen stagger up the back-stairs under his heavy laundry-basket; Susy and Jemmy, who begged every day at the kitchen-door for the cold pieces the cook threw away; that little girl whom she saw when she went with Uncle Will to the Mission School, whose eye was black and swollen, where her drunken mother struck her; the bare-foot newsboy who cried the Sunday-morning papers—how strange that she had not noticed them sooner! Still onward moved the celestial presence, radiant, awful in its unsmiling sweetness; and now, for the first time, Mabel saw how the wonderful light which shone around it illuminated through and through all upon whom it fell, until garments and flesh became only a filmy veil, through which the soul appeared. It paused, at last, before the wretched group. The clear eyes looked backward now. Mabel felt their tender, reproachful gaze read her very heart. No word, no breath was heard in all the vastness of the place. Then, while the strange, undazzling radiance grew and grew about him, the Child turned and touched the outcasts one by one. O marvelous transfiguration! Seen through each tear-marked face and shrinking form, a white-robed angel stood with folded wings! Once more the Child looked back on Mabel—on them all; then, rising slowly, slowly, vanished in the upper blue, and she awoke. The house was very still, and the moon-light shone about her in the room. One moment more, and a little, white, bare-foot figure slipped past the crib where baby Willie lay sleeping softly; past Nora, breathing heavily upon her cot beside him, across the dim passage-way, in through the open door of the adjoining room. Mabel crept softly between the warm, folding arms. "Oh, mamma! the Christmas tree—you know—I don't want it!" "Not for my own self, I mean! We must have it, though; and never so splendid! And you mustn't give me anything—not the littlest bit, mamma. But we'll have little Joe, and Jemmy, and Susy—you know Susy?—and those Irish children down the alley, and—and—somebody that Uncle Will knows about at the Mission. And we'll buy the prettiest things. And I don't want the doll, mamma; indeed I don't!" "My child, what has come to you?" "O, if you had been there, mamma. If you had only seen!" And so, in broken sentences, Mabel told her dream. "Cook might clear the kitchen," said mamma, thoughtfully. "There would be plenty of room." "Oh, no, no, mamma!" Mabel almost screamed. "Not there! Why, our parlor would be like Heaven to Susy! If you had only seen the angels inside, you would think our very best things weren't half good enough!" "Give the child her way!" said papa, with something shining on his cheek in the moonlight. Papa, mamma, and Mabel went down town together next morning; and all day the shop-boys kept the bell of the street door ringing, till the hall-table was one pyramid of paper parcels, in all shapes and sizes. Warm jackets, and bright frocks, caps, shoes, and mittens; toys, candies, and picture-books—no wonder that mamma despaired of loading all that reckless abundance upon one small tree! But papa and Mabel managed it somehow, and just at seven o'clock on Christmas Eve, the guests began to arrive. Mabel brought them into the back parlor, where their worn shoes and bare feet sank into the velvet carpet, and their eyes were dazzled with all the unwonted light and color, driving quite away all their shy, frightened looks with her bright smiles and welcoming words. But what shall I say of that moment when the folding-doors were thrown wide open, and the full blaze of the great chandelier revealed the Christmas tree, in all its unimagined splendor? Or of the cry of rapture, so strange to that score of little voices, which must have flown up to the very ear of the Christ Child of Mabel's dream? Or of the tears of joy, the long-drawn breaths of incredulous happiness, the "Thank yous!" and "God bless yous!" when Mabel handed round the gifts papa took down for her? Or of the long supper-table, set with all the best china and cut-glass and silver, where they all sat down and ate their fill—some of them for the first time in all their lives—and of which not a single spoon or fork was missed, not one delicate cup broken? At ten o'clock the last child had gone away, with heart and hands full, and the house was quiet. Mabel carried her one gift upstairs—an illuminated text, in a pretty carved frame: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me." The blonde-haired doll, the pearl bracelet, and the ermine set really were locked away in mamma's closet. I think they were meant to come out at New Year; but not for all the world would papa and mamma have lessened to-night the perfect blessedness of Mabel's sacrifice.—Independent.