[Illustration:  HE GRASPED A RAILING TO STEADY HIMSELF]

The eyes of the drunken man caught sight of this, and wavered.  The presence of the crowd conveyed no meaning to his dazed brains.  But there was something in the familiar symbol which held his vision.  He looked, and crossed himself, remembering the traditions of his childhood.  Some of the boys were humming as they went the stirring strains of an ancient Christmas march known to all nations; a carol which began, some say, as a rousing drinking chorus.

The familiar strain touched some chord in the sodden brain.  The man gave a feeble whinny, trying to follow the melody.  He pulled himself together and lurched forward in a sudden impulse to join the band of pilgrims.  But by the time he had taken three steps they had vanished, miraculously, as it seemed to him.

“Begorra, they’re gone!” he cried.  “Who were they?  Were they rale folks?  What was it they was singin’?”

He sank back helplessly on a flight of steps. “Ve-ni-te a-do-re-mus!” he croaked in a quavering basso.  And his tangled mind went through strange processes.  Suddenly, there came to him in a flash of exaggerated memory the figure of the Christmas Angel which not ten minutes earlier he had kicked into the street.  A pious horror fell upon him.

“Mither o’ mercy!” he cried, again crossing himself.  “What have I been an’ done?  It was a howly image; an’ what did I do to ut?  Lemme go back an’ find ut, an’ take ut up out av the street.”

Greatly sobered by his fear, he staggered down the block and around the corner to the steps of Miss Terry’s house.

“This is the place,” he mused.  “I know ut; here’s where the frindly lam’post hild me in its arrums.  I rimimber there was a dark house forninst me.  Here’s where ut lay on the sidewalk, all pink an’ pretty.  An’ I kicked ut into the street!  Where is ut now?  Where gone?  Howly Mither!  Here’s the spot where ut fell, look now!  The shape of uts little body and the wings of ut in the snow.  But ’tis gone intirely!” He rubbed his eyes and crossed himself again. “’Tis flown away,” he muttered. “’Tis gone back to Hiven to tell Mary Mither o’ the wicked thing I done this night.  Oh, ’tis a miracle that’s happened!  An’ oh!  The wicked man I am, drunk and disorderly on the Howly Eve!”

    “O come, all ye faithful,
      Joyful and triumphant!”

Once more he heard the familiar strain taken up lustily by many voices.

“Hear all the world singin’ on the way to Bethlehem!” he said, and the stupor seemed to leave his brain.  He no longer staggered.

“I’ll run an’ join ’em, an’ I won’t drink another drop this night.”  He looked up at the starry sky.  “Maybe the Angel hears me.  Maybe he’ll help me to keep straight to-morrow.  It might be my Guardian Angel himsilf that I treated so!  Saints forgive me!”

With head bowed humbly, but no longer reeling, he moved away towards the sound of music.