, was just a place into
which people entered for a time to play a part, and, at the end of the
act, went out and left her to finish as best she could alone.

Once within the church, however, with the organ pealing out the music
she had heard the night before of the shepherds keeping watch over their
flocks, she ceased to feel aggrieved and with deep emotional happiness
entered into the service. As Hertha Ogilvie she had at once gone to the
Episcopal Church. To enter its portals and take part in its ritual
seemed to her as much in keeping with her new character as sitting down
at table with white men and women. But her nature so swiftly responded
to beauty, there were so many sensitive chords of the spirit that
vibrated to the chant of the service, or to the moments of silent prayer
within the darkened church amid the multitude of throbbing souls, that
she grew to love the church of her adoption. "How glad I am to be
white," she thought as she stood up and heard the Te Deum ring through
the softly lighted spaces. "And yet how queer it is to be glad, for I've
always been just the same."

The snow began to fall at one o'clock, and when Applebaum appeared for
dinner at three (he had not been allowed to help in its preparation) he
made much ado of standing in the hall and shaking off the flakes.

"I especially ordered a white Christmas for you, Miss Hertha," he called
as he stood in the open doorway.

She smiled in reply and asked him to come in.

"Could I have a word with Kitty?" he stammered.

Leaving him still in the hall, clutching nervously at his umbrella, she
went into the kitchen and sent out Kathleen.

Applebaum was much embarrassed. "Would you mind, Kitty?" he said.
"There's a little boy downstairs that was in the street a minute ago,
yelling loud enough to drown a whole orchestra because they were taking
his mother away to the hospital. He was pounding and kicking the doctor
until I promised him a turkey dinner, when he stopped as if his
mouthpiece was broken. Do you mind if I bring him up?"

"Why, of course not," she answered, "it's only you that would mind, for
you're not used to children."

When he appeared in the hall again he was accompanied by a singularly
unattractive boy of eight with a colorless face and incredibly dirty
hands.

"We hadn't time to fix up," Applebaum said with forced cheerfulness,
endeavoring to make proper connections between a very shabby pair of
trousers and a soiled shirt.