It was Christmas Day. The church was filled with great and fashionable people. Among the gorgeous crowd were to be seen Miss Brand and Maggie Reed, the latter in a warm dress of grey cloth.
Nearer the altar knelt George and his wife, his eyes often seeking the place where his friends were seated.
Father Francis, assisted by two other priests, was officiating.
George looked happier to-day. The presence of his hitherto forgotten companions had revived him, and the good father had spoken soothing words to him about his child's death. George had been overcome, and unaccustomed tears coursed down his face as he clasped the father's hand, and said,—
"Ah! one's early friends are true. Their love makes life worth having."
While the choir sang the Gloria in Excelsis, the musician's thoughts had strayed to his early days. He was thinking of the sunbeam, and wondering whether its visit was a dream. If so, it must have been a dream straight from God, for that day had gained him his career.
The golden flower had reared its head very near to the Sun-lands. Would it ever reach them?
He remembered a secret drawer in his escritoire, in which there was a small plaster crucifix, a faded geranium leaf, and a silver compass. He had kept these little relics, and yet he had ceased to remember the friends who had smoothed the rough pages of his childhood and pencilled his name in the book of fortune.
But Father Francis and Maggie and Miss Brand should be safe now; they should know no further sorrow!