The street was quiet.  Few persons passed on either side.  At last she spied two little ragamuffins approaching.  They seemed to be Jewish lads of the newsboy class, and they eyed the display of candles appraisingly.  The smaller boy first caught sight of the box in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Hello!  Wot’s dis?” he grunted, making a dash upon it.

“Gee!  Wot’s up?” responded the other, who was instantly at his elbow.

“Gwan!  Lemme look at it.”

The smaller boy drew away and pressed the spring of the box eagerly. Ping! Out popped the Jack into his astonished face; whereupon he set up a guffaw.

“Give it here!” commanded the bigger boy.

“Naw!  You let it alone!  It’s mine!” asserted the other, edging away along the curbstone.  “I saw it first.  You can’t have it.”

“Give it here.  I saw it first myself.  Hand it over, or I’ll smash you!”

The bigger boy advanced threateningly.

“I won’t!” the other whimpered, clasping the box tightly under his jacket.

He started to run, but the bigger fellow was too quick for him.  He pounced across the sidewalk, and soon the twain were struggling in the snowdrift, pummeling one another with might and main.

“I told you so!” commented Miss Terry from behind the curtain.  “Here’s the first show of the beautiful Christmas spirit that is supposed to be abroad.  Look at the little beasts fighting over something that neither of them really wants!”

Just then Miss Terry spied a blue-coated figure leisurely approaching.  At the same moment an instinct seemed to warn the struggling urchins.

“Cop!” said a muffled voice from the pile of arms and legs, and in an instant two black shadows were flitting down the street; but not before the bigger boy had wrenched the box from the pocket of the little chap.

“So that is the end of experiment number one,” quoth Miss Terry, smiling grimly.  “It happened just about as I expected.  They will be fighting again as soon as they are out of sight.  They are Jews; but that doesn’t make any difference about the Christmas spirit.  Now let’s see what becomes of the next experiment.”

CHAPTER III

THE FLANTON DOG

She returned to the play box by the fire, and rummaged for a few minutes among the tangled toys.  Then with something like a chuckle she drew out a soft, pale creature with four wobbly legs.

“The Flanton Dog!” she said.  “Well, I vow!  I had forgotten all about him.  It was Tom who coined the name for him because he was made of Canton flannel.”

She stood the thing up on the table as well as his weak legs would allow, and inspected him critically.  He certainly was a forlorn specimen.  One of the black beads which had served him for eyes was gone.  His ears, which had originally stood up saucily on his head, now drooped in limp dejection.  One of them was a mere shapeless rag hanging by a thread.  He was dirty and discolored, and his tail was gone.  But still he smiled with his red-thread mouth and seemed trying to make the best of things.