ther,
should clasp in my arms a Savior-child. I believed the words of the
angel,--for was I not of the house of David?--and ever treasured them
in my heart. Now, how strange should it be that not in my peaceful
Nazareth, not in this, our own home, but: there, and that weary night of
all nights, beside me on the straw should be laid my infant son!

"I knew immediately what to call him, for, as I have often told you,
the angel had named him 'Jesus.' 'Even so,' the angel had said; 'for he
shall save his people from their sins.' I have wondered much what that
means for your brother."

"Watch well your work, children! Burn not the cakes. Fold with care the
mantles and the coats. This garment we will lay aside for patches. It
repays not labor to put new to old; and, James, test well the skins
before you fill them with the wine. We know not to whom your brother
bears the gifts of his handiwork to-night, but he knows who needs them
most, and naught must be lost or wasted.

"Where was I in the story, children?"

"The baby on the hay, sweet mother."

"Ah, yes, I mind me now. I took him in my arms. To me no child had ever
looked the same. But now, a marvel! The rock stable, which before had
seemed dark indeed, lighted only by our dim lamps, suddenly shone full
of light. I raised my eyes, and there, before and above me, seemingly
through a rent in the roof, I beheld a most large and luminous star.
Verily, I had not seen the opening in the roof when I had lain me down,
but now I could do naught else but look from my baby's face beside me,
along the floods of light to the star before.

"And now, without, rose a cry: 'We are come to behold the King. We are
guided.' And, entering the stable, clad in their coats of sheepskin,
with their slings and crooks yet in their hands, came shepherds, I
cannot now recall the number."

"I had wrapped my babe in his clothes, and had lain him in his manger.
And now it was so that as soon as their eyes fell upon his face, they
sank to their knees and worshiped him."

"'Heard you not,' spake a white-bearded shepherd to me; 'heard you not,
young Mother Mary, the angels' song?'"

"'Meseems I have long heard it, and can hear naught else, good father,'
I answered."

"To us it came,' he said, 'in the first watch of this night, and with it
music not of earth.'"

"Afterward came the learned ones from the Eastern countries,--I know not
now the land. The gifts they brought him made all the place se