admiration, we hoped, of the congregation at large.

On parting with Min late in the evening at her door--for our work at the
church had occupied us longer than usual--I thought it the happiest
Christmas Eve I had ever passed; and, as I went to bed that night, I
wondered, dreamily, if the morning's sun would rise for another as happy
a day, while I prayed to God that He would shape my life in accordance
with the fervent desire of my heart.

CHAPTER FIVE.

"JOY."

"Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of self that, trembling, pass'd in music out of
sight!"

It was a regular joyous, jolly, old-fashioned Christmas morning: bright,
sparkling, exhilarating.

Just sufficient snow had fallen during the night to give that semblance
of winter to the house-tops and hedge-rows, with a faint white powdering
of the roadway and pavement, which adds so much to the quondam season of
family gatherings, merrymakings, and plum-pudding; and this, King Frost
had hardened by his patent adamantine process, so that it might not
cause any inconvenience to foot passengers or lose its virgin freshness;
while, at the same time, he decked and bedizened each separate twig and
branch of the poor, leafless, skeleton trees with rare festal jewels and
ear-drops of glittering icicles; besides weaving fantastic devices of
goblin castles and airy, feathery foliage on the window panes, fairy
armies in martial array and delicate gnome-tracery--transforming their
appearance from that of ordinary glass into brilliantly-embroidered
flakes of transparent, lucent crystal. Ah me! Jack Frost is a cunning
enchanter: his will is all-powerful, his taste wondrous.

The clanging church bells were merrily ringing in "the day of glad
tidings," as our good vicar styled it, when I jumped out of bed and
looked out to see what the weather was like. It was exactly as I could
have wished--if I had had any choice in the matter--Christmas all over!

A little robin acquaintance, who never omitted his daily call at my
window-ledge for his matutinal crumbs, was stretching his tiny crimson
throat to its fullest extent, with quivering heart-notes of choral song,
from a solitary poplar-tree in the adjacent garden on which my room out-
looked, making the still air re-echo with his melody;