"What were you laughing at so, uncle?" she whispered.
"At my nephew's painful conscientiousness and stern performance of duty. What a martyr he made of himself, to be sure!"
"Now, uncle, I half believe you think I stepped under your old mistletoe on purpose. It's no such thing."
"O, no, my dear. The mistletoe is haunted, and has been for a thousand years or more, and viewless elves draw under it those who are to receive kisses,—prophetic of many others from the same lips."
But here he found Lottie's hand upon his lips for a second, and then she stood at Miss Martell's side, who was now playing a prelude. In some surprise, Lottie noticed that, instead of there being a printed sheet upon the piano-rack, both the words and music were written by hand. As Miss Martell sang, in a sweet but unfamiliar air, the following words, her surprise and interest deepened:
At midnight, in Judean skies,
There dawned a light whose holy rays
Not only cheered the shepherds' eyes,
But filled with hope all coming days.
At midnight, o'er Judea's plain
Was heard a song unknown before;
The echoes of that sweet refrain
Are reaching earth's remotest shore.
'Twas not the sun o'er Eastern hills,
That shed a transient radiance round;
Nor a feeble heir of earthly ills
The shepherds in the manger found.
Upon the darker midnight sky
Of human sorrow, care, and sin—
A night that broods at noontide high;
A dreary gloom all hearts within—
There rose a gentle, human face,
Whose light was love and sympathy—
The God of heaven, yet of our race—
The humblest of humanity.