use, and he was sure she would keep his secret. With the
cellar-master it might be a different thing. That his companions knew
him was an added humiliation. He had deserved it all; but there was One
who had called Himself the Friend of sinners, and that Friend had
received even him, a poor prodigal who had returned to his Father's
house.

CHAPTER VII.

A HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

The pastor had fallen into the pleasant habit of having his wife with
him when he wrote his sermons. Alone in the morning he made his
researches and his copious notes for his compilation. In the evening he
talked over with his wife the subject in hand, before the work of
writing really began. She found him one night, shortly before Christmas,
sitting dolorously before his table covered with papers, while an
unusual cloud overshadowed his face.

"I cannot even think how to begin, wife," he said; "my thoughts will run
in quite another direction. I feel all the weight of the new year upon
me. Those old debts of mine, that I can never hope to clear off, hang
upon me like a hopeless weight. A few years less at Upsala, and a good
deal less debt, would have been a far better preparation for such a
parish as this."

The pastor's wife was not at all cast down by this sorrowful lament. It
had long been a familiar strain to her. She answered cheerily,--

"You had nothing to do with the arrangements as to what you were to
learn at Upsala, and how long you must be there. You worked hard, and
denied yourself almost the necessaries of life, as you well know. Now
you are here and at your higher mission, which _must_ be faithfully
performed. So you will have to throw all these cares overboard. Just
when we are to remember that 'God so loved the world,' we must not
forget that He loves us still, every one of us. We here in this little
parsonage are under His care, and He is not going to let us have burdens
heavier than we can bear. We live simply enough; there is no faring
'sumptuously every day' here, as all the parish knows. I have thought
out a little help. We will not give each other anything for Christmas.
If gifts are but an expression of love, we do not need that kind of
expression between us. For Elsa I have made a big rag doll, dressed in a
fine peasant dress, from the scraps in my piece-bag. We will have a
little Christmas-tree on a table for a variety, and I have put tinsel
round nuts to hang upon it with the pretty red apples from the garden;