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JANET
OR
THE CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS
I
IN the doorway of an old tenement-house, fardown in the slums of New York, two womenwere standing, their heads close together as theygossiped about the passers-by.
A young girl—she might have been thirteen—trippedalong the sidewalk, kicking her legs out infront of her as she went, so that she could see herstockings.
Her odd movements caught the women’s eyes,and they asked each other what could be the causeof them.
“I never see her act like that before. Puttin’on such airs! Dear! dear! Saw ye ever the likesof it?”
“Oh, see her new stockings!” said the younger2woman. “What mighty fine ones! Did youever?”
“I doubt she came by them in no good way,”said the other. “Janet, young un! See here!”
The child stopped, holding up her tattered gownto show her pretty stockings. “Who give youthem?” cried the woman who had called her.
The girl replied quietly, “’Twas the Bishopgive me ’em.”
At this the women exclaimed in chorus, “TheBishop! That’s a fine tale! How’d you know itwas the Bishop?”
Janet said Roy, the newsboy, told her; and thewomen asked her, “How is it your father hasn’tgot hold of ’em? He’d sell ’em for drink insideof a minute.”
“Oh, I only wears ’em on the street,” saidJanet, “and I takes ’em off an’ hides ’em beforeI go home.”
The women begged her to tell them all about it,and settled themselves comfo