ning of that. So he watched with an
eagerness new to him the day-breaking. He could see Margret's window,
and a dim light in it: she would be awake, praying for him, no doubt.
He pondered on that. Would you think Holmes weak, if he forsook the
faith of Fichte, sometime, led by a woman's hand? Think of the apostle
of the positive philosophers, and say no more. He could see a
flickering light at dawn crossing the hall: he remembered the old
school-master's habit well,--calling "Happy Christmas" at every door:
he meant to go down there for breakfast, as he used to do, imagining
how the old man would wring his hands, with a "Holloa! you're welcome
home, Stephen, boy!" and Mrs. Howth would bring out the jars of
pine-apple preserve which her sister sent her every year from the West
Indies. And then---- Never mind what then. Stephen Holmes was very
much in love, and this Christmas-day had much to bring him. Yet it was
with a solemn shadow on his face that he watched the dawn, showing that
he grasped the awful meaning of this day that "brought love into the
world." Through the clear, frosty night he could hear a low chime of
distant bells shiver the air, hurrying faint and far to tell the glad
tidings. He fancied that the dawn flushed warm to hear the
story,--that the very earth should rejoice in its frozen depths, if it
were true. If it were true!--if this passion in his heart were but a
part of an all-embracing power, in whose clear depths the world
struggled vainly!--if it were true that this Christ did come to make
that love clear to us! There would be some meaning then in the old
school-master's joy, in the bells wakening the city yonder, in even
poor Lois's thorough content in this day,--for it would be, he knew, a
thrice happy day to her. A strange story that of the Child coming into
the world,--simple! He thought of it, watching, through his cold, gray
eyes, how all the fresh morning told it,--it was in the very air;
thinking how its echo stole through the whole world,--how innumerable
children's voices told it in eager laughter,--how even the lowest slave
half-smiled, on waking, to think it was Christmas-day, the day that
Christ was born. He could hear from the church on the hill that they
were singing again the old song of the angels. Did this matter to him?
Did not he care, with the new throb in his heart, who was born this
day? There is no smile on his face as he listens to the words, "Glory
to God i