"Wait until Monday," he said from behind her on the horse. "I shall show
you great things."

But the little maid was cold by that time and beginning to be
frightened. "Monday you may fight," she said. "Now I wish you would
sing."

So he sang until his voice cracked in his throat. Because it was
Christmas, and because it was freshest in his heart, he sang mostly
what he and the blacksmith and the crockery-seller had sung in the
castle yard:

"The Light of Light Divine,
True Brightness undefiled,
He bears for us the shame of sin,
A holy, spotless Child."

They lay that night in a ruined barn with a roof of earth and stones.
Clotilde eyed the manger wistfully, but the Holy Eve was past, and the
day of miracles would not come for a year.

Toward morning, however, she roused the boy with a touch.

"She may have forgotten me," she said. "She has been gone since the
spring. She may not love me now."

"She will love you. It is the way of a mother to keep on loving."

"I am still a girl."