birth of
Jesus, and I have repeated the details again and again in order to
impress them upon their wandering minds. Last Sunday I questioned
them, and finally asked triumphantly, "Well, David, who was the Babe
in the manger?" With a wild look round the room for inspiration, David
enunciated with swelling pride, "Beulah, Teacher."

We had a lovely time on Christmas. The night before the children hung
up their stockings, but it was midnight before I could get round to
fill them, they were so excited and wakeful. I "hied me softly to my
stilly couch," and was just dropping off into delicious slumber when
at 1 A.M. the strains of musical instruments (which you had
sent) were heard below. Then I appreciated to the full the sentiment
of that poet who sang:

"Were children silent, we should half believe
That joy were dead, its lamp would burn so low."

Later in the day we had our Christmas tree, when Topsy was overjoyed
at receiving her first doll. There is something very sweet about the
child in spite of all her wilful ways, and she is a real little mother
to her doll.

We had a great dinner, as you may imagine. I overheard some of the
little boys teasing Solomon, who is only three, to see if he would not
forgo some particular choice morsel upon his plate, to which an
emphatic "no" was always returned. Then by varying gradations of
importance came the question, would he give it to Teacher? The answer
not being considered satisfactory, Gabriel felt that the time had come
for the supreme test, Would Solomon give it to God and the angels? The
reply left so much to be desired that it is better unrecorded.

In our harbour lives a blind Frenchman, Francois Detier by name. He
came here in his youth to escape conscription. The fisher people have
travelled a long road since the old feuds which scarred the early
history of Le Petit Nord, and Francois is a much-loved member of the
community. Since the oncoming of the inoperable tumour, which little
by little has deprived him of his sight, the neighbours vie with each
other by helping him. One day a load of wood will find its way to his
door. The next a few fresh "turr," a very "fishy" sea auk, are left
ever so quietly inside his woodshed--and so it goes. It is a constant
marvel to me that these people, who live so perilously near the margin
of want, are always so eager to share up. Francois is sitting in our
cellar as I write pulling nails from old boxes with my new pate