[Illustration: Frontispiece]

The Romance of a Christmas Card




I


It was Christmas Eve and a Saturday night when Mrs. Larrabee, the
Beulah minister's wife, opened the door of the study where her husband
was deep in the revision of his next day's sermon, and thrust in her
comely head framed in a knitted rigolette.

"Luther, I'm going to run down to Letty's. We think the twins are
going to have measles; it's the only thing they haven't had, and
Letty's spirits are not up to concert pitch. You look like a blessed
old prophet to-night, my dear! What's the text?"

The minister pushed back his spectacles and ruffled his gray hair.

"Isaiah VI, 8: '_And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying
whom shall I send?... Then said I, Here am I, send me!_'"

"It doesn't sound a bit like Christmas, somehow."

"It has the spirit, if it hasn't the sound," said the minister. "There
is always so little spare money in the village that we get less and