the youth's thoughts. "'Tis during these years of innocent pleasure
that the little ones are most free from care."

"Tell me," said Claus, "why do not all these babies fare alike?"

"Because they are born in both cottage and palace," returned the
Master. "The difference in the wealth of the parents determines the
lot of the child. Some are carefully tended and clothed in silks and
dainty linen; others are neglected and covered with rags."

"Yet all seem equally fair and sweet," said Claus, thoughtfully.

"While they are babes--yes;" agreed Ak. "Their joy is in being alive,
and they do not stop to think. In after years the doom of mankind
overtakes them, and they find they must struggle and worry, work and
fret, to gain the wealth that is so dear to the hearts of men. Such
things are unknown in the Forest where you were reared." Claus was
silent a moment. Then he asked:

"Why was I reared in the forest, among those who are not of my race?"

Then Ak, in gentle voice, told him the story of his babyhood: how he
had been abandoned at the forest's edge and left a prey to wild
beasts, and how the loving nymph Necile had rescued him and brought
him to manhood under the protection of the immortals.

"Yet I am not of them," said Claus, musingly.

"You are not of them," returned the Woodsman. "The nymph who cared
for you as a mother seems now like a sister to you; by and by, when