e were fast asleep.

Now when they had been dreaming strange things for some time, there came a
scratching at the door, and a loud bark which woke them suddenly.

"What was that?" exclaimed Grandfather, starting nervously. "Ho, Prince!
Are you without there?" and he ran to the door, while Grandmother was
still rubbing from her eyes the happy dream which had made them
moist,--the dream of a rosy, radiant Child who was to be the care and
comfort of a lonely cottage. And then, before she had fairly wakened
from the dream, Prince bounded into the room and laid before the fire at
her feet a soft, snow-wrapped bundle, from which hung a pale little face
with golden hair.

"It is the Child of my dream!" cried Bettine. "The Holy One has come back
to us."

"Nay, this is no dream-child, mother. This is a little human fellow,
nearly frozen to death," exclaimed Josef Viaud, pulling the bundle toward
the fire. "Come, Bettine, let us take off his snow-stiff clothes and get
some little garments from the chests yonder. I will give him a draught of
something warm, and rub the life into his poor little hands and feet. We
have both been dreaming, it seems. But certainly this is no dream!"

"Look! The dove!" cried Grandmother, taking the bird from the child's
bosom, where it still nestled, warm and warming. "Josef! I believe it is
indeed the Holy Child Himself," she whispered. "He bears a dove in his
bosom, like the image in the Church." But even as she spoke the dove
fluttered in her fingers, then, with a gentle "Coo-roo!" whirled once
about the little chamber and darted out at the door, which they had
forgotten quite to close. With that the child opened his eyes.

"The dove is gone!" he cried. "Yet I am warm. Why--has the little Stranger
come once more?" Then he saw the kind old faces bent over him, and felt
Prince's warm kisses on his hands and cheeks, with the fire flickering
pleasantly beyond.

"It is like coming home again!" he murmured, and with his head on
Bettine's shoulder dropped comfortably to sleep.

On the morrow all the village went to see the image of the Christ Child
lying in a manger near the high altar of the church. It was a sweet little
Child in a white shirt, clasping in his hands a dove. They believed him to
have come in the stormy night down the village street. And they were glad
that their pious candles in the windows had guided Him safely on the road.
But little Pierre, while he sang in the choir, and his a