erries over the
chimney piece.

The sun was set and in the crimson glow with which the heavens were
painted, just above the low, black hills, shone bright and silvery the
Evening Star.

Crescimir, with Jovita leaning on his shoulder, stood at the west window
looking out over the misty valley where the real seemed ghostlike in the
gray evening haze, and even those things with which they were familiar,
seemed in the fading light to take to themselves unknown forms.

"Strange world!" said Jovita, meditatively, "Real and Unreal so often
blended that we can never say which is tangible and which is air."

"Look Jovita, look!" and Crescimir seizing her hand pointed out toward
the garden.

They stood there gazing from the window, as if spellbound, until the
crimson light faded from the sky and the clear star descended below the
hills.

A bit of mist or fog, or what you will hovered about the garden and then
gradually rising it became dissolved and was gone.

"Gone!" whispered Jovita, as the darkness shut out the valley from view.
"Good little Christchild; but his memory shall ever be with us,"
answered Crescimir, as they sat side by side before the open fireplace.

* * * * *

Everybody wondered where the little Christchild had gone, and search was
made, but, of course, unsuccessfully; yet Crescimir and Jovita said
nothing.

Thus, in time, people forgot about the tiny elf and now there are few
who have even heard of Crescimir's guest.

The pretty cottage may to-day be seen on the knoll near the wonderful,
wide-spreading laurel tree and every Christmas Eve upon the chimney
piece of its open hearted hearth may be seen a dark, glossy branch of
hemlock with a bunch of toyone.

Before the fire sit Crescimir and Jovita singing the little Christmas
carrol of the Illyrian children. Sometimes they think that they hear a
sweet, soft voice joining in harmony with their own, but yet they are
not sure but that it may perhaps be only the music of their own happy
hearts, and smiling at Jovita, who holds the little Crescimir in her
arms, Crescimir the Illyrian points to the branch above the hearth while
the little one opens his eyes in wonderment.

"Was he not, Jovita mia, like the affection which is seen by all the
world between lovers before marriage? And then the world wonders where
it has gone when the priest has pronounced the two as one. But we
married lovers will never tell, for