was so clear that far away appeared the great black barrier of the mountains. Across the sky, as across deep water, was a radiance of light, serene and chill,—of clouds like foam, of throbbing stars, of the moon glorious in her aura. In the towns at that hour the people were ready to begin the coming day with prayer and the sound of bells: here sky and earth themselves honored the event with light and silence in a majestic expectation.

As she made her way over the frozen grass she looked as detached from the world's affairs as some shrouded lady at her nightly journey along a haunted path. The great Swiss barn was dead silent; its red front, painted with moons and stars, looked patriarchal; it had its own pastoral and dignified associations. She hesitated at the middle door, then she lifted the wooden bar and pushed it back cautiously. The darkness seemed to come out to meet her, and when she had shut herself in she was engulfed as though the ready earth had covered her a few nights too soon.

The straw rustled when she stepped on it, and she was afraid to risk a movement, so she crouched and made herself small. The air was thick and pungent, freezing draughts played upon her through the cracks of the door, and her foot tingled, but she did not move. After a while she saw two luminous disks which halted, glared, and approached, and she patted the furry body until it curled up on her skirt and lay there purring. She felt it grow tense at a tiny squeak and scuttle, but she kept still.

More than half an hour had gone when something happened. A horse stamped, a cock set up a sudden chatter, the cat leaped to a manger, and a cow scrambled to her feet. The darkness was full of movement,—wings fluttered, timbers shook under kicking hoofs and rubbing hides, tossed heads jarred the rings that held them fast. Then from the corner in which stood the splendid yoke of black oxen, the pride of the farm, there came a long, deep sound, as of something primeval mourning.

Two minutes after, Conrad was roused by a noise in the kitchen. The house door stood wide, showing a great rectangle of moonlight, there was a rush of

cold air, and his bare foot struck Mary, doubled up where she had fallen. He shouted, and an old woman ran in with her gray hair flying.

"Conrad!" she exclaimed, almost in a scream.

"I don't know," he answered. He had his wife in his arms and held her out like a child showing a broken toy.

The old woman bethought herself first. "Take her in and lay her on the bed," she ordered. While she worked he began to hurry on his clothes, moving as though he were stupid; then he came up to the bed.

"Aunt Hannah, what has she?" he begged. She gave him a look, and he suddenly burst into a great storm of tears.

"Hurry!" she said. "Take Dolly and a whip and go to Bernville first. If the doctor isn't home, go along to Mount Pleasant; but bring a doctor. Ach!" she seized his hand in her excitement.

Mary's eyes were opening—blue, wide, and terrified. "Don't take Dolly," she said, quite loud. "Dolly knows too much." Then her eyes closed again.

Conrad went into the kitchen, still sobbing, and the old woman followed.

"I must take Dolly," he whispered.

"Aunt Hannah, for God's sake, what has she?"

"I don't know what she means about Dolly. Maybe I can find out till you get back. She'll soon come to. You better be careful going out of the barnyard. It might worry her if she hears the hoofs."

The young man checked his crying. "I take her through the fields," he said, and went out softly.

In the light of the candle which contended with the moonbeams Hannah's wrinkled face looked witchlike as she bent over the bed. Presently Mary started and her eyes searched the room with a terrified stare; she seemed to be all at once in the midst of some dreadful happening.

"Aunt Hannah," she exclaimed, "don't let them come for me!"

The old woman bent over her. "How do you feel?" she asked, in her soft and friendly Dutch.

"Don't let them come!"

"Nobody comes, Mary. It is all right, only you are not so good. After while somebody is coming. Then you are glad!"

"Keep them out! I don't want to go!"

"You don't go off; you stay right here with me and Conrad."

"They said—"

"Who?"

"The oxen."

Hannah's hand shook, but she still spoke reassuringly. "Were you in the barn, Mary?"

"Yes. You know how it is said that on Christmas eve, twelve o'clock, the animals talk. I thought so much about it, and I made up my mind to go and hear what they had to say. I was in the middle stable that's empty, and I waited, and all of a sudden—" She stopped, trembling.

"Just don't think about it," Hannah urged, but she went on:

"All of a sudden—Dolly stamped—and they all woke up—the cows and the sheep, and the cat was scared and the big rooster cackled,—and then the oxen—Ach, Aunt Hannah! One of them said, 'They will carry out the mistress in the morning.'"

"You don't go, for all," the old woman soothed her. "Think of who is coming, Mary. That's a better thing to think about. It's so lucky to have it on Christmas day. She will have good fortune then, and see more than others."

The pinched face grew bright. The trembling soul was not to go out alone

before, becoming a part of the great current of maternity, it had had the best of what is here.

"I take such good care of her. I look after her all the time," said Mary.

The sun was gone, but the west was still as pink as coral and the twilight gave a wonderful velvety look to the meadows. In the rye-fields the stalks, heavy-headed already, dipped in the wind which blew the last apple-blossoms about like snow. A row of sturdy trees grew along Conrad Rhein's front fence, and there was a large orchard in the rear. The log house was just the color of a nest among the pale foliage.

The place was so quiet that the irritable note of a couple of chimney-swallows, swooping about in pursuit of an invisible purpose, sounded loud. Hannah Rhein looked up from the small stocking she was knitting to watch them. Her secular occupation was contradicted by her black silk "Sunday dress," and there was a holiday appearance about the little girl who sat very still, looking as though stillness were habitual with her.

"You better run out to the gate. Maybe you can see them," Hannah said.

The child went, and stood looking down the road so long that she rolled up her knitting and followed. "There they are!" she exclaimed. "Father and Aunt Calista. Don't forget to give her a kiss when she gets out."

Conrad Rhein's austere face expressed no pleasure as he stepped from the carriage and helped his companion, but she was not to be depressed by a brother-in-law's gravity. Calista Yohe, moving lightly in her pink delaine dress, resembled the prickly roses coming into bloom beside the gate, which would flourish and fade imperturbably in accordance with their own times and seasons. At present she looked as though the fading were remote. She shook hands joyfully and seized the carpet-bag which Hannah had taken.

"I guess I don't let you carry that," she said. "It's heavy."

The little girl put up her face, and Calista kissed her without speaking to her, and went on talking:

"You are right, Dolly is hot. We drove good and hard. Conrad didn't want to do it to give her the whip, but I don't like to ride slow. Let's sit on the porch awhile."

The child placed her bench near the