the
ground, she offered an energetic resistance. Basilio examined the wall,
but could not scale it. Then he made the tour of the grave. He saw a
branch of the great tree, crossed by a branch of another. He began
to climb, and his filial love did miracles. He went from branch to
branch, and came over the tomb at last.

The noise he made in the branches startled Sisa. She turned and
would have fled, but her son, letting himself drop from the tree,
seized her in his arms and covered her with kisses; then, worn out,
he fainted away.

Sisa saw his forehead bathed in blood. She bent over him, and her
eyes, almost out of their sockets, were fixed on his face, which
stirred the sleeping cells of her brain. Then something like a spark
flashed through them. Sisa recognized her son, and with a cry fell
on his senseless body, pressing it to her heart, kissing him and
weeping. Then mother and son were both motionless.

When Basilio came to himself, he found his mother without
consciousness. He called her, lavished tender names on her, and seeing
she did not wake, ran for water and sprinkled her pale face. But the
eyes remained closed. In terror, Basilio put his ear to her heart,
but her heart no longer beat. The poor child embraced the dead body
of his mother, weeping bitterly.

On this night of joy for so many children, who, by the warm hearth,
celebrate the feast which recalls the first loving look Heaven gave
to earth; on this night when all good Christian families eat, laugh,
and dance, 'mid love and kisses; on this night which, for the children
of cold countries, is magical with its Christmas trees, Basilio sits
in solitude and grief. Who knows? Perhaps around the hearth of the
silent Father Salvi are children playing; perhaps they are singing:

"Christmas comes,
And Christmas goes."

The child was sobbing. When he raised his head, a man was looking
silently down at him.

"You are her son?" he asked.

Basilio nodded his head.

"What are you going to do?"

"Bury her."

"In the cemetery?"

"I have no money--if you would help me----"

"I am too weak," said the man, sinking gradually to the ground. "I am
wounded. For two days I have not eaten or slept. Has no one been here
to-night?" And the man sat still, watching the child's attractive face.

"Listen," said he, in a voice growing feebler, "I too shall be dead
before morning. Twenty paces from here, beyond the spring, is a pile
of wood; put our tw