THE OLD HEAD DROOPED DROWSILY.

He awoke with a start an hour later when a man anxiously shook him by the shoulder.

"Are you all right, Nicholas?" asked a worried voice. "I got up to see if the fire had gone out and found you still here, and look, it's almost dawn!"

Nicholas shook himself, then stood up wearily. "Yes, lad, it's Christmas morning, and I haven't finished my work," he said sorrowfully.

"I'll do the last one for you, Nicholas," answered the man kindly. "You just leave the toys and things here and go home to bed. I'll finish it. Go along now, before the children get up and see you."

Nicholas, thinking of his warm comfortable bed, handed the stocking to the man and went out into the gray dawn.

Five minutes later, a little nightgowned boy stood in the doorway of the living room. "Why, Father," he exclaimed in a disappointed tone, "I thought it was Nicholas who gave us the toys, and here you are filling my stocking!"

The child looked ready to cry, but his father, caught with the half-filled stocking in his hand, hastened to reassure him.

"Your Nicholas is getting old, my boy," he said, "and sometimes he gets so tired we parents have to help him in his work. But don't you forget, it's always Nicholas who leaves you the toys."

"That's all right then!" said the little fellow. "It isn't half so much fun when you think your mother and father prepare the gifts."

"I should say not," said the father sternly, "and you must never doubt Nicholas. Why, he might be so hurt at a little boy thinking he didn't fill the stockings, that he might never come to his house again. Think how terrible that would be!"

"Yes," whispered his son in a frightened voice. "What would Christmas be without Nicholas?"