And then she would close her eyes and begin to sing the dear old
carols . . . with the tremble in her voice . . . and tapping on the table
with her finger-ends in rhythm . . . and Memory's tears dropping
on the wrinkled checks . . . and the tremulous voice, still soft and
sweet, chanting:

"God rest you, merrie gentlemen!
Let nothing you dismay;
For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
Was born on Christmas Day!"
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Aye and amen, dear soul! God rest you - and He does!



When Day is Done



If the page blurs, as it may do if you were ever a child and if you have
been tempered in the cruel furnace of the years, maybe the mists that
fill the eyes will bathe the soul of you in their hallowed flood until
the world-ache is soothed, and you can start up the big road again with
some of the same wonderful exultation that sped you onward and forward
in the Long Ago . . . One touch of that, and the burden of Today, grown
great in the years of struggle, slips from your shoulders as lightly as
the wild-rose petal drops upon the bosom of the stream and floats away
to the music of the riffles.