rst, and hope was always stirring in Mrs. Bird's
heart. "Carol would feel stronger in the summer-time;" or, "She would
be better when she had spent a year in the country;" or, "She would
outgrow it;" or, "They would try a new physician;" but by and by it came
to be all too sure that no physician save One could make Carol strong
again, and that no "summer-time" nor "country air," unless it were the
everlasting summer-time in a heavenly country, could bring back the
little girl to health.

The cheeks and lips that were once as red as holly-berries faded to
faint pink; the star-like eyes grew softer, for they often gleamed
through tears; and the gay child-laugh, that had been like a chime of
Christmas bells, gave place to a smile so lovely, so touching, so tender
and patient, that it filled every corner of the house with a gentle
radiance that might have come from the face of the Christ-child himself.

Love could do nothing; and when we have said that we have said all, for
it is stronger than anything else in the whole wide world. Mr. and Mrs.
Bird were talking it over one evening, when all the children were
asleep. A famous physician had visited them that day, and told them that
some time, it might be in one year, it might be in more, Carol would
slip quietly off into heaven, whence she came.

"It is no use to close our eyes to it any longer," said Mr. Bird, as he
paced up and down the library floor; "Carol will never be well again. It
almost seems as if I could not bear it when I think of that loveliest
child doomed to lie there day after day, and, what is still more, to
suffer pain that we are helpless to keep away from her. Merry Christmas,
indeed; it gets to be the saddest day in the year to me!" and poor Mr.
Bird sank into a chair by the table, and buried his face in his hands to
keep his wife from seeing the tears that would come in spite of all his
efforts.

"But, Donald, dear," said sweet Mrs. Bird, with trembling voice,
"Christmas Day may not be so merry with us as it used, but it is very
happy, and that is better, and very blessed, and that is better yet. I
suffer chiefly for Carol's sake, but I have almost given up being
sorrowful for my own. I am too happy in the child, and I see too clearly
what she has done for us and the other children. Donald and Paul and
Hugh were three strong, willful, boisterous boys, but now you seldom see
such tenderness, devotion, thought for others, and self-denial in lads
of th