bal, when you came before me with your colored
candle, one year ago."

"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Cristobal, clasping his hands in awe. "I
saw your eyes follow me; and I never once turned but you were looking.
They told me it was only a picture; but I said for that very reason
your eyes were sorrowful,--you longed to be alive."

The child replied by a slight motion of the head; and the aureola
trembled like sunlight on the water. The longer Cristobal gazed, the
more courage he gathered. "Lovely vision," said he, "if vision you may
be,--I have said to myself, I would gladly walk to Rome with peas in
my shoes, if I could know what you wished to say to me that Christmas
night."

"Only this, little brother: Are you ready for Christmas?"

"Alas! no: I never am. I have only two sous in the world."

"Poor Cristobal! Yet, without a centime, one may be ready for
Christmas."

"But I am so very unhappy!"

"You do indeed look sad, little brother: where is your pain?"

"In my eyes," moaned the boy, pouring out the words with a delightful
sense of relief; for he was sure they dropped into a pitying heart.
"Beloved little Jesus, let me tell you that since I saw you last I
have been wickedly injured. Now I have always a pain in my eyes: there
are two flames behind them, which burn day and night."

"I grieve for you," said the Child with exquisite tenderness; "yet,
dear boy, for all that, you might be ready for Christmas: but is there
not also a pain throbbing and burning in your _heart_?"

"Oh, if you mean that, I am tossed up and down by vexation: I am full
of hatred against that terrible Jasper. It was all about a miserable
Christmas-candle he carried. I broke it by pushing him down. Tell me,
was he right to fly at me like a wild beast? Ought he not to suffer
even as I have suffered? Is it just, is it right, for the great man's
son to put out a peasant boy's eyes, and be happy again?"

"Misguided Jasper!" said the Child solemnly; "let him answer for his
own sin: judge not, little brother."

Cristobal hid his face in his hands, and wept for shame.

"Shall I give you ten golden words for a Christmas-gift? Will you
hide them in your heart, and be happy?"

"I will," answered Cristobal.

"They are these," said the Child with a voice of wondrous sweetness:
"Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."

Cristobal repeated the words, a soft light stealing over his face. "I
will remember," he said, looki