suspended about her neck by the golden chain. And as she stood there
holding the symbol out to Norss, he--he thought of the time when first
he saw her on the far-distant Orient shore, standing beneath the Star
in all her maidenly glory, shading her beauteous eyes with one hand,
and with the other clasping the cross,--the holy talisman of her
faith.

"Faia, Faia!" cried Norss, "it is the same,--the same you wore when I
fetched you a bride from the East!"

"It is the same," said Faia, "yet see how my kisses and my prayers
have worn it away; for many, many times in these years, dear Norss,
have I pressed it to my lips and breathed your name upon it. See
now--see what a beauteous light its shadow makes upon your aged face!"

The sunbeams, indeed, streaming through the window at that moment,
cast the shadow of the symbol on old Norss's brow. Norss felt a
glorious warmth suffuse him, his heart leaped with joy, and he
stretched out his arms and fell about Faia's neck, and kissed the
symbol and acknowledged it. Then likewise did Faia; and suddenly the
place was filled with a wondrous brightness and with strange music,
and never thereafter were Norss and Faia beholden of men.

Until late that night Claus toiled at his forge; for it was a busy
season with him, and he had many, many curious and beauteous things to
make for the little children in the country round about. The colored
flames leaped singing from his forge, so that the Northern sky seemed
to be lighted by a thousand rainbows; but above all this voiceful
glory beamed the Star, bright, beautiful, serene.