ut before morning.

He was only six years old, so no wonder that at first he felt choked and
frightened, and inclined to cry. But he was a brave lad, and that idea
soon left him. He began to think that he was not badly off, after
all,--the church was warm, the pew-cushion as soft as his bed. No one
could get in to harm him. In fact, after the first moment, there was
something so exciting and adventurous in the idea of spending the night
in such a place, that he was almost glad the accident had happened. So
he went back to the pew, and tried to go to sleep again.

That was not so easy. Did you ever get thoroughly waked up in the night
by a sudden fright? Do you remember how your eyes wouldn't stay shut
afterward, even when you closed them tight, but jerked open almost
against your will, as if a string was fastened to them and some one was
twitching it? Just so poor Roger felt. He lay still and kept himself
quiet for a moment, and then some little noise would come, and his heart
beat and his eyes be wide open in a minute. It was a coal dropping from
the fire, or a slight crack on the frosty panes: once a little mouse
crept out from the chancel, glaring shyly about with his bright eyes,
nibbled a moment at a leaf on the carpet and then crept back again. No
other living thing disturbed the quiet.

He had heard the clock strike eleven a long time since, and was lying
with eyes half shut, gazing at the red fire-grate, and feeling at last a
little drowsy, when all at once a strange rush and thrill seemed to come
to him in the air, like a cool clear wind blowing through the church,
and in one minute he was wide awake and sitting upright, with ears
strained to catch some sound afar off. It was too distant and faint for
ordinary sense, but a new and sharper power of hearing seemed given him.
Little voices were speaking high in the air, outside the church,--very
odd ones, like birds' notes, and yet the words were plain. He listened
and listened, and made out at last that it was the owls in the tower
talking together.

"Hoo, hoo, why don't you lie still there?" said one.

"Whit-whoo-whit," said the other, "I can't. I know what is coming too
well for that."

"What is coming,--what, what?" said two voices together.

"Ah! you'll see soon," replied the first. "The elves are coming, the
hateful Christmas elves. You'll not get a wink of sleep to-night."

"Why not? What will they do to us?" chirped the young ones.

"You'll see,"