“Yes, children,” he was saying, “it was the blessed child Jesus who was born on Christmas night. He loves us all very much indeed, and of course we all want to love him. Some time he is going to send his priest here to baptize you; then what will you all be?”
“God’s little children.” The answer rose sweetly and with a kind of merriment from every lip, and Reuben’s face shone.
“Surely, surely,” he said. “Now we will sing, because we love him and want to thank him. Yes, I know the song you want—‘The Three Poor Shepherds.’”
“We were but three poor shepherds,
All keeping our flocks by night,
When Monseigneur the blessed angel
Came suddenly into sight—
“Came suddenly through the darkness,
While a glory round him fell;
I wot not if it were Michael