She had gone to the Bishop with this the night before.

"If I should lie in a manger all night," she said, standing with her
feet well apart and looking up at him, "would I become a boy?"

The Bishop tugged at his beard. "A boy, little maid! Would you give up
your blue eyes and your soft skin to be a roystering lad?"

"My father wishes for a son," she had replied and the cloud that was
over the Castle shadowed the Bishop's eyes.

"It would not be well," he replied, "to tamper with the works of the
Almighty. Pray rather for this miracle, that your father's heart be
turned toward you and toward the lady, your mother."

So during much of the night she had asked this boon steadfastly. But
clearly she had not been heard.

"Back to your bed!" said her father, and turned his face away.

So she went as far as the leather curtain which hung in the doorway and
there she turned.

"Why do they sing?" she had asked the Bishop, of the blacksmith and the
others, and he had replied into his beard, "To soften the hard of
heart."

So she turned in the doorway and sang in her reedy little voice, much
thinned by the cold, sang to soften her young father's heart.