g to you then." And the poor mother would crawl back
to her baby and her bed, and pretend to try to sleep; and in half an
hour would appear again at the door. One o'clock, two o'clock, three
o'clock. How companionable Dr. Lowell's clock seems when one is sitting
up so, with no one else to talk to! Four o'clock at last; it is really
growing to be quite intimate. Five o'clock. "If I were in dear Durham
now, one of the roosters would be calling,"--Six o'clock. Poor Horace
stirs, turns, flings his arm over. "Mother--O Huldah! is it you? How
nice that is!" And he is unconscious again; but he had had sense enough
to know her. What a blessed Christmas present that is, to tell that to
his poor mother when she slides in at daybreak, and says, "You shall go
to bed now, dear child. You see I am very fresh; and you must rest
yourself, you know. Do you really say he knew you? Are you sure he knew
you? Why, Huldah, what an angel of peace you are!"

So opened Huldah's Christmas morning.

* * * * *

Days of doubt, nights of watching. Every now and then the boy knows his
mother, his father, or Huldah. Then will come this heavy stupor which is
so different from sleep. At last the surgeons have determined that a
piece of the bone must come away. There is the quiet gathering of the
most skilful at the determined hour; there is the firm table for the
little fellow to lie on; here is the ether and the sponge; and, of
course, here and there, and everywhere, is Huldah. She can hold the
sponge, or she can fetch and carry; she can answer at once if she is
spoken to; she can wait, if it is waiting; she can act, if it is acting.
At last the wretched little button, which has been pressing on our poor
boy's brain, is lifted safely out. It is in Morton's hand; he smiles and
nods at Huldah as she looks inquiry, and she knows he is satisfied. And
does not the poor child himself, even in his unconscious sleep, draw
his breath more lightly than he did before? All is well.

"Who do you say that young woman is?" says Dr. Morton to Mr. Bartlett,
as he draws on his coat in the doorway after all is over. "Could we not
tempt her over to the General Hospital?"

"No, I think not. I do not think we can spare her."

The boy Horace is new-born that day; a New Year's gift to his mother. So
pass Huldah's holidays.

II.

CHRISTMAS AGAIN.

Fourteen years make of the boy whose pony has been too much for him a
man equal to any