As Mr. Wenck approached he saw that the door stood open: a few steps
farther, and this fact was accounted for. A bent and wrinkled old
woman stood there with a broom in her hand, which she had been using
in a plain, straight-forward manner.

"Ah, Mary," he said, "what does this mean, my good woman?"

"It is the minister," she answered in a low voice, curtseying. "I was
moved to come here this morning, sir, and see to things. It was time
to be brushing up a little, I thought. It is a month now since the
last."

"I will take down the old boughs then, and garnish the walls with new
ones. And have you looked at the lamp too, Mary?"

"It is trimmed, sir," said the woman; and the minister's readiness to
assist her drew forth the confession: "I was thinking on my bed in the
night-watches that it must be done. There will one be going home soon.
And it may be myself, sir. I could not have been easy if I had not
come up to tidy the house."

Having finished her task, which was a short one and easily performed,
the woman now waited to watch the minister as he selected cedar boughs
and wove them into wreaths, and suspended them from the walls and
rafters of the little room; and it comforted the simple soul when,
standing in the doorway, the good man lifted his eyes toward heaven
and said in the words of the church litany:

From error and misunderstanding,