Connecticut western news., 1879-12-17
John Warder'S Christmas
 Gift.

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 Gift.
 It was 8 lonely room of lonely house-a house against which, as the needs of the city's growth in trade en- croaehed upon the building sites, the tide of improvement had surged vainly. leaving it at every ebb unmoved as eyer. The shadows deepened as the fire burned lower and lower, film of white ashes inclosing the smouldering coals. The master of the house sat at table, with his head resting on his hand 8 stern man of forty, or thereabouts, though the deep lines of his face made him seem older. There is nothing sad in gray hairs and wrinkles, per SC. When they come as the genuine mark of duteous toil which has kept pace with the marching years, they but testify-not sadly, surely that the soul is surp assing the limits Of its garments, and that the time is coming by-and.by for it's
 sLeaving its out-grown shell by hfes unrest
 ing sea-"
 But looks that have siivered slowly through still night times, when 8 tortur- ing conscience '' murdered sleep ;" deep corrugations furrowed into plastic cheek and brow by the convnlsions of pride, passion, or remorse, there is nothing in all the world more sorrowful to see than these.
 John Warder had been made for 8 nobler life than he was living. In the quarrel which he had waged, years be- fore, with all that was dearest to him, he had done to nothing else such deadly hurt as to his own better nature.
 Sorely wounded and bleeding, he had not dared to leave it to die unguarded, but had walled it up in prison. house of pride and selfshness, lest haply he might feel within it some stir of reyiving life and warmth. Whatever shadows he had cast on other lives, he had blighted none so utterly as his own. Even he knew that, sitting still tonight, and accepted the knowledge with 8 certain defiant bitterness.
 A merry peal of bells from some neighboring church tower came to his ear, mingled with the hurrying tread of the passers outside, and he remembered suddenly that it WAS Christmas eve. 5 His face changed for an instant; perhaps some tender thread out of the past was tugeing uneasily at his heart. If il were so, he snapped it with resolute hand, and turning toward the light be- gan to read. It wss an old, cold booh of philosophy CD which he opened, vel low and worn with fire equent use.
 John Warden could read such words as these on Christmas eve
 "Since God, if there be God, hatl withdrawn himself far away from hi works, within the impenetrability of hi own essence, leaving the elements O evil let loose in this lower world to com pass in the end, dire oonfuson and ruin or haply to work out their own elimi nation, every soul shall sustain the re suits of it's own action, and the presump ton of 0 supra human redemptlv agency is DO more than the thin fgmen of an enthusiastic imagination.
 As his eye fingered on the closing words of the paragraph there was sud den, sharp ring at the street door. N one seemed to answer the summons, an directly there was second ring, nor prolonged and importunate than tn first. At this sound he recollected ths there was no one in the house beside himself, old Mrs. Hall, the housekeepel having gone to superintend the decors children, and taken Peggy, her ittl handmaiden, with her. With an expreE sion of impatience, he laid aside hi book and went down stairs, but o throwing open the door, started wit surprise to find no one standing withou
 "Some rogue of boy has played m trick" he said to himself, looking U and down the street; but while th words were yet on his lips, the faintel possible rustic at his feet made hil look downward. There on the broa door stone stood large covered wicke basket, half-hidden in the shadow of th wall. He slowly and cautiously lite it inside, and as he closed the door b. hind him, the figure of woman rose U from crouching posture in the darkne not far of, seemed to listen awhile the door, and then fitted hurried away.
 In the light of the hall lamp, Jot Warder lifted the cover of the baske No more than bundle of flannel 8 peared at first, but it's folds move gently as if to the regular breathing sleeping child. With 8 tremblil eagerness to which he had long be- unused, he drew aside the careful cove ing and disclosed o little face set in fa curla, and rosy with the sweet sleep infancy. While he looked the little ol stirred uneasily as if about to wake and with strangely mingled feeling