THAT night Ruby has a curious dream. It is stilly night, and she is standing down by the creek, watching the dance and play of the water over the stones on its way to the river. All around her the moonlight is streaming, kissing the limpid water into silver, and in the deep blue of the sky the stars are twinkling like gems on the robe of the great King.
Not a sound can the little girl hear save the gentle murmur of the stream over the stones. All the world—the white, white, moon-radiant world—seems to be sleeping save Ruby; she alone is awake.
Stranger than all, though she is all alone, the child feels no sense of dread. She is content to stand there, watching the moon-kissed stream rushing by, her only companions those ever-watchful lights of heaven, the stars.
Faint music is sounding in her ears, music so faint and far away that it almost seems to come from the streets of the Golden City, where the redeemed sing the “new song” of the Lamb through an endless day. Ruby strains her ears to catch the notes echoing through the still night in faint far-off cadence.
Nearer, ever nearer, it comes; clearer, ever clearer, ring those glad strains of joy, till, with a great, glorious rush they seem to flood the whole world:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace; good will toward men!”
“It’s on Jack’s card!” Ruby cannot help exclaiming; but the words die away upon her lips.
Gazing upwards, she sees such a blaze of glory as almost seems to blind her. Strangely enough the thought that this is only a dream, and the attendant necessity of pinching, do not occur to Ruby just now.
She is gazing upwards in awestruck wonder to the shining sky. What is this vision of fair faces, angel faces, hovering above her, faces shining with a light which “never was on land or sea,” the radiance from their snowy wings striking athwart the gloom?
And in great, glorious unison the grand old Christmas carol rings forth—