No one has any heart to carry on the joyous preparations for Christmas in which Bertie usually bears an active part, but Mrs. Chetwynd will not let the poor people suffer, and their gifts of warm clothing and tea and sugar are all looked over and carefully ticketed by Mildred and Alice.
Poor girls! they have little spirit for the work, but it is better for them than the dreary waiting which follows. At last Alice can bear it no longer. She throws a cloak round her and steals out into the avenue. The air is clearer now and the snow has ceased to fall. The earth is covered with a brilliant white sheet, and overhead the wintry stars are shining out one by one in the deep blue vault. The girl begins to feel more hopeful, as the still frosty air cools her hot cheek, and the stars look down upon her with their silent greeting of peace.
“Glad tidings of great joy”—the Christmas message of nearly nineteen centuries ago—surely it cannot be that a heart-breaking grief is to come on them on this, of all nights in the year! A prayer is in her heart—on her lips—and even in that moment, as if in answer, there burst forth the most joyous of all sounds to Alice’s ear—their own village bells ringing a Merry Christmas peal! It had been understood that this was to be the signal of Bertie’s being found and safe. Louder and louder it comes, and eager congratulations are exchanged by the anxious watchers. Mrs. Chetwynd wants to fly to meet her boy, but is gently restrained by Mildred, who reminds her that his father must be with him. Nor is it long before a happy group are seen approaching.
There is Bertie (who has insisted on putting his injured foot to the ground lest his mother should be frightened by seeing him carried) bravely hopping along with the aid of his father’s strong arm faithful little Nettle trotting close at his side and Jack Brown, with whom the Squire has shaken hands and exchanged a “Merry Christmas” slouching behind—but whose is the tall figure on Bertie’s other side? Ah! cousin Mildred knows, and well is it perhaps that the growing darkness throws a friendly veil over the joyous blushes and the happy thankful tears that mark that meeting.
ASAPH SHEAFE’S CHRISTMAS.
Asaph had just the Christmas presents he wanted. “Wanted” is hardly the word: he had not supposed that a boy like him could have such things for his own. His father and mother gave him one present, it was a camera obscura, and thirty glass plates all ready to take photographic views. They were made to work by the new dry process, so that, without over-nice manipulation of chemicals, Asaph could go where he pleased and make his own photographs.
What the children gave him I must not tell, we have so little room. But, of all the children in Boston who had their Christmas presents at breakfast, none was better pleased than Asaph as he opened his parcels.