Distant clocks struck the hour of midnight.
It was Christmas-day!
From an old church, just behind the hospital, where a midnight carol service was being held, came the sound of an organ, in deep tones of rolling harmony. Then, softened by intervening windows into the semblance of angelic music, rose the voices of the choristers, in the great Christmas hymn:
"Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new-born King!"
And kneeling there, in those first moments of Christmas morning; kneeling in deepest reverence of praise and adoration, Diana's womanhood awoke, at last, in full perfection.
"Glory to the new-born King,"
the helpless Babe of Bethlehem, pillowed upon a maiden's gentle breast, clasped in a virgin mother's arms; the Babe Whose advent should hallow the birth of mortal infants, for all time;
"Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth."
Diana hardly knew, as she knelt on, listening to the quiet breathing at her bosom, whether the rapture which enfolded her was mostly mother-love, or wifely tenderness.