le-laden
city crowds, of shop-girls white and weary, of store-heaps of cedar and
holly sapped by electric glare. Rush and strain and worry--yes--and a
spirit of grudging! How unlike the Christmas peace of this white,
wind-world outside his window! So Doctor Ralph went to bed with a sigh
and a shrug--to listen while the sleety boughs tapping at his windows
roused ghostly phantoms of his boyhood. Falling asleep, he dreamt that
pretty Madge Hildreth had lightly waved a Christmas wand of crimson
above his head and dispelled his weariness and discontent.

IV

Embers

And in the morning--there was the royal glitter of a Christmas ice-storm
to bring boyhood memories crowding again, boughs sheathed in crystal
armor and the old barn roof aglaze with ice. Yes--Ralph thrilled--and
there were the Christmas bunches of oats on the fences and trees and the
roof of the barn--how well he remembered! For the old Doctor loved this
Christmas custom too and never forgot the Christmas birds. And
to-day--why of course--there would be double allowances of food for the
cattle and horses, for old Toby the cat and Rover the dog. Hadn't Ralph
once performed this cherished Christmas task himself!

But now, clamoring madly at his door was a romping swarm of youngsters
eager to show Uncle Ralph the Christmas tree which, though he had helped
to trim it the night before, he inspected in great surprise. And here in
his chair by another Yule-log he found Roger, staring wide-eyed at the
glittering tree with his thin little arms full of Christmas gifts. Near
him was Sister Madge whose black eyes, Ralph saw with approval, were
very soft and gentle, and beyond in the coffee-fragrant dining-room Aunt
Ellen and old Annie conspired together over a mammoth breakfast table
decked with holly.

"Oh, John, dear," Ralph heard his mother say as the Doctor came in,
"I've always said that Christmas is a mother's day. Wasn't the first
Christmas a mother's Christmas and the very first tree--a mother's
tree?" and then the Doctor's scandalized retort--"Now--now, now, see
here, Mother Ellen, it's a father's day, too, don't you forget that!"

And so on to the Christmas twilight through a day of romping youngsters
and blazing Yule-logs, of Christmas gifts and Christmas greetings--of a
haunting shame for Doctor Ralph at the memory of the wild Christmas he
had planned to spend with Griffin and Edwards.

With the coming of the broad shadows which lay among the sti