tte thus
formed would have passed muster--as a quartette--with the choir-master
of St. John's, may have been a question, but it is certain the music
they produced was so far above that which the old church had ever heard
before within its walls that had the singers been a detachment from the
choir celestial those who heard them could hardly have listened with
ears more charmed.

As "Holy Night" came down to him, William Sewall bent his head. But
Ebenezer Blake lifted his. His dim blue eyes looked up--up and up--quite
through the old meeting-house roof--to the starry skies where it seemed
to him angels sang again. He forgot the people assembled in front of
him--he forgot the responsibilities upon his shoulders--those bent
shoulders which had long ago laid down such responsibilities. He saw
visions. It is the old men who see visions. The young men dream dreams.

The young city rector read the Christmas Story--out of the worn copy of
the Scriptures which had served this pulpit almost from the beginning.
He read it in the rich and cultivated voice of his training, but quite
simply. Then Margaret sang, to the slender accompaniment of the little
organ, the same solo which a famous soprano had sung that morning at
the service at St. John's--and her brother William, listening from the
pulpit, thought she sang it better. There was the quality in Margaret's
voice which reaches hearts--a quality which somehow the famous soprano's
notes had lacked. And every word could be heard, too--the quiet
throughout the house was so absolute--except when Asa Fraser cleared
his throat loudly in the midst of one of the singer's most beautiful
notes. At the sound Mrs. George Tomlinson gave him a glance which ought
to have annihilated him--but it did not. She could not know that the
throat-clearing was a high tribute to the song--coming from Asa Fraser.

"_How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given;
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessing of His heaven....
O Holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day._"

Then William Sewall made a prayer. Those who had been looking to see old
Elder Blake take this part in the service began to wonder if he had been
asked into the pulpit simply as a courtesy. They supposed he could pray,
at least. They knew he had never ceased doing it--and for them. Elder
Blake had not an enemy in the village. It seemed strange that he