t take
away," he thought, after a space of wonder, as if they had talked to God
Himself to-day.

The Professor wished him a happy Christmas, in his simple, hearty
fashion, and then the two men sat talking of how they kept the day long
ago: Lufflin telling of frolics on ship-board, but M. Jacobus going back
constantly to the time when he was a boy with his mother.

"I have neglected it for long," he said. "I shall never again. I think
she will like us to keep it. She and--our boy."

He laid his hand on the baby's head, but his eyes wandered dreamily away
out beyond the sea.

The day was fuller of cheerfulness and pleasure than even the lonely old
sailor had hoped; the two people in whom he was beginning to confine his
whole interest were happy in a way he could not fathom; he could not
understand why Jacobus should look and listen to his wife so hungrily.

"It was the child that the day gave to him, not 'Sharley,' as he calls
her," thought Lufflin.

So he took the baby in his arms, feeling as if it were in some sort
neglected.

"I like to think," he said, after looking in its face awhile, and
speaking with an effort, as he always did, about "religion,"--"I like to
think of Christ as a helpless baby; that's the reason I like Christmas
for."

"To think," said Charlotte, softly, "that to-day Eternal Love came into
the world!--and Life!" glancing at her husband.

But Jacobus did not speak; he had his face covered with his hand, and
when he looked up was paler than before. Lufflin fancied there was a
change in the simple-hearted old bookworm's manner all day, a quiet
composure, the dignity of a man who knew his place both with God and his
brother man.

He went down again presently, leaving them alone for a little while. M.
Jacobus was standing by the window, watching the awful stillness with
which a new day lifts itself over the sea; he had the child in his arms,
and beckoned Lotty to his side. She came and leaned her head on his
shoulder.

"You will never leave me now, Sharley,--_never_," he said, his face
kindling with a new, strange triumph.

The waves lapped the shore in gentle rifts of spray; the beach itself
shone in the rising light like fretted silver. Beyond the foamy
earth-colored breakers lay the illimitable sea, a dark violet glow,
fading into the dim horizon whence came the dawn. The man's eye was
fixed on the far line which his sight could never pass; his wife's quick
glance followed his. It was