"She suffers so, poor dear, and seeing to her hinders me sadly with my work. I do feel as if I'd break down at last altogether," she said one evening—it was Christmas Eve—to a neighbour who had looked in to see how things were going on.
"And Emmy's looking pale," said the visitor, "she wants cheering up a bit too. Let her come to church with me for a change. I'm going to the evening service now."
Emmy brightened up at this. She had not been at church last Sunday, and, like most children, she was especially fond of going in the evening. It seemed grander and more solemn somehow, when all was dark outside. And the lights and warmth, and above all the music, were very pleasant to the little girl. So with a parting word of advice to the mother to keep up heart a bit longer—"things allus starts mending when they get to the worst"—the kind neighbour set off, holding Emmy by the hand.
It was beautiful in church, the Christmas "dressing up," as Emmy called it, had been completed that afternoon; to the child it seemed a sort of fairy-land, though of fairy-land she had never heard. But she had heard of heaven, which was better.
"It could scarce be finer there," she thought to herself dreamily, as she listened to the words of the service with a feeling that all was sweet and beautiful, though she could actually understand but little.
The sermon was short and simple. But Emmy was getting sleepy, and the thought of poor mother, and Tiny with her hacking cough, mingled with what she heard, till suddenly something caught her ear which startled her into attention. The preacher had been speaking of the first Christmas-day, concluding with some words about the morrow, when again the whole Christian world would join in welcoming their Lord. For "again He will come to us; again Jesus Himself will be here in the midst of us, ready as ever to listen to our prayers, to comfort and console."
Emmy was wide awake now. She scarcely heard the words of the carol, she was in a fever of eager hopefulness.
"What a good thing I came to-night," she said to herself, "else I mightn't ever have knowed it. I would like to see Him first of all. There'll be such a many, and He'll have such a deal to do. But it wouldn't take Him that long to come round with me to see Tiny, and if He does, like in the story, He'll cure her in 'alf a minute. I know what I'll do"—and a little scheme formed itself in the childish mind—"though I'll not tell mother," thought Emmy, "just for fear like, I should be too late to catch Him."
"'Twas a lovely sermon, and so touchin' too," said Emmy's friend to another woman as they walked home.